Résumé
Résumé de Jacques le fataliste et son maître
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love talk, wit and ideas as much as plot, and anyone curious about the Enlightenment, fate and free will, or the art of storytelling.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Can you steer your own life, or is every turn already written? Denis Diderot, the French philosopher behind the great Encyclopedia, asks this in Jacques the Fatalist and His Master. He let it circulate in manuscript among friends, and it reached the public only after his death in 1784. Two men ride across France. One is a servant named Jacques. The other is his master, who never gets a name. Jacques tries to tell the story of his loves, but quarrels, strangers and a teasing narrator keep breaking in.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Two travelers take to the roadFree
- 2Everything is written up above
- 3A knee wound starts the love story
- 4Servant and master swap places
- 5The hostess tells of Madame de La Pommeraye
- 6Friendship, betrayal and the master's own tale
- 7Fate or free will, the book will not decide
- 8The narrator who plays with the reader
Point clé 1 sur 8
Two travelers take to the road
The novel opens with questions. How had the two men met? By chance, like everybody else. Where were they going? Does anyone really know? The narrator refuses to answer the ones he finds dull.
The master is kind, vain and often confused. He takes snuff, checks his watch and asks for stories. Jacques is quick, talkative and sure of himself. The narrator tells us plainly that the servant often runs the show.
The narrator says he could send them into thieves or a wedding, as other novelists do. Instead he lets them wander. Life, the book hints, is mostly a ride without a map.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Jacques
- A quick-witted servant and former soldier, Jacques entertains his master with stories and insists that everything is predetermined.
- The Master
- Jacques's unnamed employer is a curious traveler who repeatedly asks his servant to recount his love affairs.
- The Narrator
- A teasing storyteller addresses the reader directly and interrupts the travelers' adventures to question how stories are told.
- Denise
- A young village woman, Denise tends the wounded Jacques and figures in the account of his loves.
- The Captain
- Jacques's former army commander teaches him that every bullet has its address and every event its appointed cause.
- Madame de La Pommeraye
- A proud widow in the hostess's tale, she resents the cooling affection of her lover, the Marquis des Arcis.
- The Marquis des Arcis
- Madame de La Pommeraye's noble lover has grown less devoted to her when the hostess's account begins.
- The Hostess
- An innkeeper encountered by the travelers, she tells them about Madame de La Pommeraye and her lover.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 101,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 6 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about Jacques le fataliste et son maître
What is Jacques the Fatalist about?
It follows a servant, Jacques, and his master as they ride across France. Jacques tells the story of his loves while they meet strangers and hear tales. Throughout, they argue over whether life is fixed by fate or open to free choice.
Who is the narrator in Jacques the Fatalist?
The narrator is an unnamed voice who talks directly to the reader. He interrupts the tale, teases you about what you expect, and claims he could send the travelers into any adventure he likes.
What does fatalist mean in the title?
A fatalist believes that all events are fixed in advance. Jacques says that everything is written on a great scroll above. Yet he still makes choices, and the book plays on this gap between belief and conduct.
When was Jacques the Fatalist written and published?
Diderot wrote it in the later part of his life and shared it in manuscript with a small circle abroad. It reached a wider public only after his death in 1784. It is fiction, not a true story.
Is Jacques the Fatalist hard to read?
The language is lively and often funny. The book is easy to enjoy.