Candide by Voltaire

During the early years of Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner would often appear during the Weekend Update segment as Roseanne Roseannadanna who would respond to a letter from Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee, New Jersey. At the end of her segment, she would say to the Weekend Update host, Jane Curtin, something like the following.

“Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it’s always something! If it’s not one thing, it’s another! Either you’re depressed at Christmas or you got toilet paper hangin’ from your shoe!”

For Candide, it isn’t one thing or another; it is one thing after another. He enjoys life in a castle with a Baron’s family. His tutor, Pangloss, teaches Candide the philosophy that all is for the best. Candide’s life teaches him otherwise, but he continues to believe what Pangloss told him. After Candide kisses the hand of the Baron’s daughter, Lady Cunegonde, he is literally kicked out of the castle. Then, after being penniless and dying of hunger, he is rescued by two men in blue who say that Candide is a well built young man who is just the right height. They put him into the army of the Bulgars. After taking a walk one day, he is given his choice of punishments. He eventually escapes but then runs into another problem. This is the life of Candide throughout the book. He is up and then down and then up and then down and so on. Poor Candide has more ups and downs than a rollercoaster!

Voltaire wrote Candide as a satire. It isn’t a straightforward adventure novel. You can tell that from the absurdity of situations. In Candide, Voltaire attacked the doctrine of philosophic optimism. Also, Voltaire’s dislike or contempt or generally bad opinion of religious figures is obvious from the writing. Voltaire’s other experiences in life are reflected in the book. You can get some of the context from the fourteen notes at the back of the book. However, it is helpful to read a study guide concurrently with the novel. I chose Cliff’s Notes but there are others which you can choose. I actually found an error in Cliff’s Notes. In one chapter, while Candide is on a French ship, he sees two other ships engaged in battle. In the novel, it says they are Dutch and German ships. Cliff’s Notes indicates that one of those two other ships is French. Actually, the French ship is the ship on which Candide is traveling.

The music for various stage performances can sometimes be described by a single word. For one military oriented work, I think of the word “majestic.” For a ballet like Sleeping Beauty with dancers flowing across the stage, I think of the word “romantic” or “sweeping.” The overture of the operetta Candide, based on the novel and with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, makes me think of the word “frantic.” That is how the life of Candide seems to me — frantic.

I can’t read French, so, like most people, I read a translation of Candide. A little research showed that there are variations in words and phrases in different editions of the book. I suppose that is inevitable when a book is originally written in a language other than English. At the beginning of the Bantam Classic edition is “The Sage of Ferney: An Appreciation” by André Maurois. Ferney is the retreat where Voltaire spent his old age. This introductory section was very informative. Other editions probably have different scholarly material. Whatever edition you choose to read, I think that you will enjoy the novel Candide.

Bottom Line first: There is something presumptuous about attempting a critical review of something as classic and acclaimed as Voltaire‘s Candide. The official verdict is that this is great literature. I shall write naught to gainsay my betters. That said it can be hard for the modern reader to do better than to accept that the several hundred years of approval may not temper the problems of reading it several hundred years later. Recommendation: It may be that the best way to grasp what is a broad and darkly comic satire is the Operetta of the same name music by Lenard Bernstein and libretto by several besides Voltaire, including Lillian Hellman. Candide (1956 Original Broadway Cast)

Ok the Blah Blah Blah Part: A German natural philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1646 – 1716 argued that as God is a loving God and the maker of all things, the reality we live in the reality of choice by a loving God and therefore we live in the best of all possible worlds. The reader is advised to remember this, The Formula. The novella is a test of this conclusion. It is perhaps something of a spoiler to tell you that Voltaire is not impressed by the arguments of this philosophical polymath.

Our story opens in a palace in Westphalia, the 18th century cultural equivalent of the poorer and less desirable quarters of an unfashionable city. Here living in relative splendor of a backwater palace we find all of our major characters. Our leading male for whom the story is titled, Candide is the illegitimate son of a relative being raised among his betters including the love of his life Cunegunda. Plus various secondary characters not necessary for this discussion.

Very quickly the misadventures begin. Candide is run from his idyllic life and never again do we see the best and the balance shall be the possible. Cunegunda survives the destruction of her home and family and begins her adventures, more about anon.

Without listing the various evils and hurts our hero suffers; a few points. Everything he sees and suffers that argue against the 18th century being the best of all possible are things that actually happened. Evil is afoot in many forms often lead by seniors within the Catholic Church. Not to limit this to a shamming of the Church there is evil petty and grand from treacherous friends and servants to local politicals and businessmen. It is argued that the evil is a necessary thing to maintain a principal of proportionality but this case is made by the quickly dismissible Panglos (Pan=all Glos=talk) the broadly shamed stand-in for Leibniz.

There will be for Candide one happy interval in a land much like the Utopia dreamed up by friend to Voltaire, Thomas More. Later Candide will fall in with and benefit from friendship with cynical and more practical Martin, Martin Luther perhaps.
It is easy to fixate on the story of Candide and forget about Cunegunda. She is also subject to all of the vagaries of her sex. Instead of being sold off, I mean married off to some neighboring lordling in a commercial marriage, she is pushed in to a number of variations in the the other kinds of commerce based on young female flesh. At her side is a loyal old woman with but one buttock. Between the two we are regaled with the funny, only not so funny variations of evils set aside for 18th Century womankind.

So 75 pages of violence , treachery, petty and great wrongdoings and we are supposed to laugh? Ok maybe grim grins?
I suggest that Voltaire pretty much dismisses our magic ‘best of all possible…’ formula very quickly. The rest is a plea for tolerance and a condemnation of extremism. Especially were the most doctrinaire are also unlikely to be practicing much else that is admirable. Also the conclusion is not so much a refutation of The Formula, as it is a case for a simpler and bucolic life.

Final note on my edition. The quality of the translation is not something I can address. I can say that I liked the presence of so many extra pages of scholarly material.

Recently I heard a reference to Voltaire’s ‘Candide’ and it occurred to me that I have omitted the works of Voltaire from my reading. I hastened to correct the matter by choosing a copy of Candide from Kindles selection of one dozen versions, both in English and French. I obviously bought an English version, not being very conversant in French. I’m glad I did; it is indeed interesting reading. I reckon to finish it before the week-end. It is an amusing read, think Gulliver’s Travels, Sindbad the Sailor or Alice, both in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass. With naked maidens taking monkey lovers and El Dorado, you have to put your credulity on hold. Baron Münchhausen comes to mind.