Candide and Other Stories by Voltaire

Date finished 28 Jan 2021

Candide is a philosophical tale with real events mixed in; a shocking and humorous satire on Voltaire’s times with problems that haven’t really gone away; greed, exploitation, corruption, debauchery and violence. Voltaire challenges the beliefs of Leibnitzian optimism and determinism, religion and the many churches of the time.

Candide is an innocent, naive chap who suffers many (many!) misfortunes whilst trying to reunite with his love, Cunégonde. He and other characters suffer floggings, beatings, sacking, rape, mutilation, inquisitors, selfishness, and thieving. Through all this suffering and injustice he very slowly comes to understand (barely) the ridiculousness of the view ingrained in him by his philosopher teacher Pangloss that all is for the best in the world and everything is well.

Still relevant to our times and never boring this rightly lives on as a classic. Aside from its attacks and satire, the morale is summed up near the end. The Turk states “Work keeps us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need”. “We must cultivate our garden”. I take this to mean that work and conscious effort is needed to live well; in contrast to the Leibnitzian view of things being as they are for a reason.

Micromégas

A philosophical tale about a giant being visiting our planet, who hears of the deeds men do to one another for a few small lumps of earth. “…deep down he was a trifle vexed to see that being so infinitesimally small should have a degree of pride that was almost infinitely great.”

Zadig

An asian tale of a clever, virtuous and courageous man who benefits from his attributes but also suffers for them. “ in this world things did not always turn out the way wisemen wanted.”

The White Bull

A story of the Middle east based on the Greek mythological tale of Europa and the bull (where the white bull is the king of the Greek gods, Zeus, in disguise). A princess encounters an old woman with a beautiful white bull and other animals from scripture (the serpent, doves, a whale). It is in fact her love, a prince. She is entranced by it but her father wishes to have it sacrificed.

Notes

• Candide
  • Philosophy (Leibnitzian). Everything works out for the best. Everything happens for a reason.
    • The nose is there for spectacles. Legs are created to wear trousers.
    • Dr Pangloss - “Individual misfortunes contribute to the general good with the result that the more individual misfortunes there are, the more all is well.”
    • The bad things that happen to Candide he thinks good and inevitable once a good end is obtained.
    • Characters have little agency. When the good Anabaptist is drowning; it’s fine, thats why the harbour is there.
    • “It is impossible for things not to be where they are. For all is well.”
  • Harsh world. Floggings, beatings, sacking, rape, inquisitors, selfishness, theiving.
  • Candide-“If this is the best of all possible worlds what must the others be like?“; he’d just had a flogging and seen his mentor being hanged by the inquisitors.
  • Encounters a sugar processing slave in Surinam with a missing hand and foot. Suffering so that the Europeans can enjoy their sugar. Not unlike the third world today.
  • After escaping the inquisitors in Portugal travels to Argentina, then Paraguay. Finds and kills Cunegonde’s brother a Jesuit, encounters natives, El Dorado, the pirate, return voyage to Venice.
  • No-one is happy on closer inspection- the Theatine monk and Paquette. Even the Venetian nobleman who has everything is unhappy with it - bored. Only in the mythical land of El Dorado, which is unattainable, are people truly happy.
  • Yet eventually he finds and frees Cunégonde and lives on a farm with his small group. There they are bored and miserable.
    • Old woman: “I would like to know which is worse: being raped 100 times by negro pirates, having a buttock chopped off, running the gauntlet of the Bulgars, being flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fé, being dissected, rowing in a galley, in short suffering all the misfortunes we all suffered, or simply being stuck here and doing nothing? “That is a good question”, said Candide. This speech gave rise to renewed speculation, and Martin in particular came to the conclusion that man was born to spend his life ultimately a pray to the throes of anxiety and the lethargy of boredom.
  • Morals at the end:
    • The Turk: ‘Work keeps us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.”
    • “We must cultivate our garden” - you make the best of the world.
• Zadig
  • “..self-esteem is a balloon filled with wind, from which great tempests surge when it is pricked.”
  • Hermes the doctor says Zadig will loose an eye. All Babylon marvelled at the depth of his knowledge…but it is cured. He writes a book proving it shouldn’t have got better. Zadig didn’t read it. = Iatrogenics
  • Zadig is desperately trying to be happy.
  • “It is to Zadig that nations owe the great principle that it is better to risk sparing a guilty man than it is to condemn an innocent one.”
  • Woman who will throw herself on the funeral pyre: “..one has to do the done thing.” - compliance.
  • After getting his armour and emblem robbed, and his chances of becoming king of Babylon ruined by the cowardly Itobad, Zadig says there it is; ‘education, virtue, courage: they brought me nothing but disaster’.
  • It was agreed in the course of conversation that in this world things did not always turn out the way wisemen wanted.
• The Ingenu
  • A foreigner in Brittany. Speaks to the ridiculousness of organised religion. The rules of men vs God. The Ingenu breaks and questions them. Eg why not marrying his godmother. Nothing in the scriptures.
  • For having learnt nothing at all in his childhood, he had not acquired any prejudices.
  • Iatrogenics the cause of the Ingenu’s love Saint-Yves’ death.