Voltaire (1694–1778)

REVIEWING ZADIG:

This is an excellent tale, echoing the manner of the Arabian Nights, filled with amusing episodes and light philosophical insights. I may be ambivalent about the story’s moral, but the character of the eponymous orotagonist is heroic in his quests and honest in his struggle to meet his outrageous challenges in a world filled with pain and frustration, not least being the betrayals and stupidities of our fellow men . . . all the while trying to puzzle out the nature of Fate. show more Its inspiration never flags.

It is worth mentioning the full title of the edition I read: Zadig, or Fate. Voltaire’s Deism shows in a revelation towards the end, with an angel offering the secret why a world with so much suffering exists. Very interesting. Today’s besotted youngsters might be amused to learn that Diversity Is a Sign not of Our Strength . . . but of the Creator’s.

This is not a novel. Voltaire tells his story in the manner of ancient tall tales, not in the modern novelistic style with its characteristic attention to moment, aiming to induce the reader into the soul of the protagonist, whether hero, victim or anti-hero. There is no “interiority” here. Do not read it expecting anything like a modern thriller or popular novel, and most especially a classic novel such as Silas Marner and Fathers and Sons. This is a droll tale in the olden style, but with Voltaire’s wit woven in to leaven the lump.

I highly recommend Zadig. Every literate person should be familiar with this form of fiction. I believe it would properly be called an “anatomy,” to use the terminology of Northrop Frye, taken from Richard Burton. The ancient term is Menippean satire. Some of my favorite writers engage in this genre: Lucian, Denis Diderot, Aldous Huxley, and James Branch Cabell. But I also acknowledge and honor the more popular form of the novel, now standard. Yet, as I grow old, and soak up our civilization’s scattered stores of wisdom — wringing them out, periodically, in the course of my many follies and foibles — I find my taste for reveling in the arts of feeling, of streams of consciousness and flows of tropisms, wane.

What waxes, instead, are the dazzling philosophical perspectives of Lucian and Cabell. And Voltaire. show less

Candide is one of the few examples of books that I don't mind is irreverent and has two-dimensional characters. The humor rides on the back of that. It's dark, but the melodrama and the fact that nothing seems permanent (aha, the secret commentary on the condition optimism can exist--you need nothing bad to be 100%) keeps things light and curious. My version was also from Librivox and read by a guy that was excellent at corny, cliche accents for characters from different nationalities, which show more fit the mood of the story. show less

Candide was an unexpected treat; one of those books that, if I did not know otherwise, I could say was written just for me. It was so deliciously dark and cynical, like if Charles Bukowski and Terry Pratchett had a baby, with Mark Twain as the midwife. But, of course, it pre-dates all of those writers; I found it astonishing just how fresh this 250-year-old topical satire proved to be. It is remarkably modern and, yes, candid in its views: religion, society, philosophy, slavery, hypocrisy, show more and so on, all get both barrels, with Voltaire always eagerly reloading after doing so. I was also (pleasantly) shocked at just how unreserved and lacking in prudishness Voltaire was when discussing sex – particularly as the book was written in the 18th century – but then, perhaps I shouldn't have been: he was a Frenchman after all.

The most unsolicited of my delights from Candide came from the fact that it was also a good adventure story, taking Candide and his band of misfits on a globe-trotting bildungsroman quest around the world: a romping antecedent to the likes of Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Pratchett's Discworld novels. Candide even stumbles across the mythical city of El Dorado, where gold and precious stones are so plentiful they lie in the streets, and whose inhabitants are bemused by their visitors' lust for their 'pebbles' and 'yellow dust'. That Voltaire managed to provide such diverse and satisfying delights in such a short novel (about 140 pages) is to be marvelled at; Candide is one of those rare 'classics' that defies the aura of stuffiness that the genre often suggests.

Despite being a philosophical satire, I was also pleased at how jargon-free Candide remained. This is a short novel the very epitome of brevity: a thoroughly delightful romp that breezes by in no time. The philosophical angle is easy enough to understand even for a layman and it is never boring, for Voltaire is deftly exposing the weaknesses of philosophical theories by pointing out their absurdities, not by critiquing them. Witness the following, after the character Candide is press-ganged into the army, exposing the limits of 'free will' in a world where cruelty and oppression is ever-present:

The bewildered Candide was still rather in the dark about his heroism. One fine spring morning he took it into his head to decamp and walked straight off, thinking it a privilege common to man and beast to use his legs when he wanted. But he had not gone six miles before he was caught, bound, and thrown into a dungeon by four other six-foot heroes. At the court martial he was graciously permitted to choose between being flogged thirty-six times by the whole regiment or having twelve bullets in his brain. It was useless to declare his belief in Free Will and say he wanted neither; he had to make his choice." (pg. 24).

(As a side note, one could easily replace the name 'Candide' with 'Huck Finn' or 'Rincewind' there.) The main thrust of Voltaire's book is not an advocacy of any certain philosophy; rather, it is to try and stop people becoming complacent. Voltaire is satirising the argument that ours is the best of all possible worlds; the argument which claims that when bad things happen they still contribute to the greater good or to the divine plan. Many will note that this is still a view prevalent amongst some woolly-minded folk nowadays. (Candide delivers a revealing definition of optimism on page 86 – "The passion for maintaining that all is right when all goes wrong with us." – which would be worthy of addition to Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary.) Voltaire correctly recognises that this allows people to become complacent; it allows them not to try and make the world better themselves because what is happening, good or bad, is 'part of the plan'. But, as Candide realises at the end of his adventure, "we must go and work in the garden." It will only grow if we work at it; if we pull out the weeds and cultivate the flowers and crops. That's a message we all need reminding of from time to time, and I guarantee you'll never have as much fun learning it as you will here." show less

"Candide" is a black comedy whose punchlines usually involve the innocent narrator being ruthlessly whipped for no good reason whatsoever. Still, the book has a remarkably evolved worldview given its age, playing as a broad satire and loose mockery of preconceived notions of virtue, morality, faith and justice. Filled with dated allusions to current events, the book is still an enjoyable romp of a read, especially at a lightweight 90 pages.