DENIS DIDEROT - JACQUES THE FATALIST
Continuing my recent binge on French literature, I came across this comedic gem first published in 1796 which I feel deserves to be better known in the English-speaking world.
The Jacques of the title is travelling somewhere with his master, who during the journey presses him for the story of his love life. This tale is begun, but constantly interrupted by events and other anecdotes, many of which are from Jacques himself, who is both long-winded and obsessed with the notion of predestination.
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The comedy also comes from the author himself who frequently intrudes, breaking the fourth wall (a term which Diderot actually coined), seemingly involving the reader in the direction of the plot or the filling in of details the writer has omitted.
The idea of story-telling on a journey is of course very old (Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's Decameron, etc), and it has also been said that Diderot plagiarised the shaggy-dog story style of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, although this is a little unfair since Diderot specifically mentions Sterne in the book.
The bawdiness of the tale is also noteworthy, once again demonstrating how even as early as the eighteenth century Gallic writers could use language and descriptions not acceptable for publication across the English Channel until well into the twentieth.
Jacques the Fatalist, at least in the Oxford World Classics translation I read, presents no problems for the modern reader and is an entertaining and unusual bit of fun continuing on in the French comic tradition of Rabelais.
Give it a go: in the words of the protagonist, it's "written on high" that you'll enjoy it.