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3.0 

Jacques and His Master

By Milan Kundera
Jacques and His Master by Milan Kundera digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

A deliciously witty and entertaining "variation" on Diderot's novel Jacques le Fatalist, written for Milan Kundera's "private pleasure" in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.

When the "heavy Russian irrationality" fell on Czechoslovakia, Milan Kundera explains, he felt drawn to the spirit of the eighteenth century—"And it seemed to me that nowhere was it to be found more densely concentrated than in that banquet of intelligence, humor, and fantasy, Jacques le Fataliste."

The upshot was this "Homage to Diderot," which has now been performed throughout the United States and Europe. Here, Jacques and His Master, newly translated by Simon Callow, is a text that will delight Kundera's admirers throughout the English-speaking world.

10 Reviews

3.0
“First things first: do not read this play if you haven’t read Diderot’s book first. You won’t like it at all. You might not even fully understand it. Kundera’s play delightfully emphasizes the philosophical themes of the original novel and gives it a sweet ending too. One thing I disliked about the Persian translation of Diderot’s story, that all characters speak in the same way, is certainly not an issue here, at least in the English translation of Kundera’s play. All in all, I’d say this is a successful homage, but since as a stand-alone play it might not be enjoyable or even comprehensible, I can’t say that it’s a good play on its own.”

About Milan Kundera

The Franco-Czech novelist Milan Kundera (1929-2023) was born in Brno and lived in France, his adopted homeland, since 1975. He is the author of the novels The Joke, Life Is Elsewhere, Farewell Waltz, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and the short story collection Laughable Loves—all originally written in Czech. His later novels, Slowness, Identity, Ignorance, and The Festival of Insignificance, as well as his nonfiction works, The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, The Curtain, and Encounter, were originally written in French.

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