Krishna
This is a classic. Many of us have heard of it, but not many have studied it. I decided to give it a go. The overarching impression I am left with is one of puzzlement. This is a satire and Voltaire definitely ridicules the notion of the Grand Scheme of Things and the idea that Everything Happens for the Best. You get it loud and clear when you read it but the story goes all over the place with gut wrenching changes that leave the story’s plot in tatters often, and you wonder whether it is intended.
A bit about Voltaire himself first – he is one of the most recognized names in literature. Francois-Marie Arouet was Voltaire’s real name and he adoped the nom de plume when he was arrested and jailed in France.
It is a comedy romance? Look at even the place names. Where Candide was brought up with a Baron, the city is called Thunder-ten-tronckh and the next down where he goes when driven out by the baron is Waldsberghoff-trarbk-dikdorff .In fact the weirdness starts right there, and does not let up until the end.
It is not just the place names that are odd. Even the story is. Why was Candide driven out? He dared fall in love with the baron’s daughter, the fair Miss Cunigonde and she reciprocated the feeling. Master Pangloss teaches what in the castle? Wait for it… he teaches metaphysico-theologico-cosmolonigology. Come on now!
Heavy sarcasm permeates the narration – heroes in one army destroying villages with mass killings and mass rape and the heroes belonging to the victim’s side doing the same thing to another innocent village belonging to the victor of the previous raid.
Candide hears that his beloved and the Baron were killed when he meets Pangloss in a near skeletal state. Then a whole pile of things happen. Pangloss recovers, they go on a voyage for no good reason (I mean to do with the story), get shipwrecked…. Oh boy!
He meets Cunigonde when he least expects it and learns that she is not dead but is the object of desire by a Jew and a Merchant and kills both! He runs away with Cunigonde and her servant on horseback.
He is then separated from Cunigonde because a Governor desires her. Candide then meets her brother. And after shedding tears of joy seeing him, kills him! Wait, what?
It gets weirder. Runs away dressed as the priest (Cunigonde’s brother is a priest and a colonel at the same time!) He acquires a squire called Cacambo and then goes to Peru, which is supposed to be the El Dorado of ancient myth. It is bordered by ‘a river so swift that none could cross over’ on one side and ‘mountains which have perpendicular sides’ on the other so that it is in splendid isolation. (You wonder, if it is that impregnable, how did Candide himself, never mind his servant, manage to reach it? They themselves reached there through the river. Oh I see – everything is now crystal clear!).
There the streets are all gold – not paved with it but full of it. Their sand is gold, their pebbles are gold nuggets and children play with it. No rich, no poor, no crime… Your practical side rises its pesky head again and you wonder how they earn their income. Obviously gold is of no value right? (No explanation. This is not an economics text book).
Then if the gold are worthless (dirt and stones) and the gemstones are used as playthings, what are the houses constructed of? Not a clear explanation. But beds are made of hummingbird downs (what? how many millions of these have to be slaughtered to make one bed? )
They decide to return despite the king’s plea for them to stay but the king, of course, can make carriages that are capable of taking them out of the country despite the formidable obstacles mentioned. (Helicopters? you wonder cynically). Candide promptly loses almost all his wealth.
Voltaire is unconcernedly irreverent about all nations: the French for instance are monumentally stupid and violent and they laugh at everything, even when in a rage and are slitting somebody’s throat.
On with the story : Candide meets Pococurante in an inn. Pococurante seems to think every famous author is bad… no, everything in the world is bad. But to learn that you have to go through every author in the world at that time, and learn why he or she is awful. It gets so boring after the first two.
Then comes narration of seven kings who have lost their kingdom but who congregate in the same inn, disguised, and each one tells a story. What is this? Adolescent’s literature?
Then there is this: None of the characters who die stay dead. They keep coming back, like a cartoon Wyle E. Coyote which gets crushed with his own Acme equipment. Even a person who was seen to be hanged comes back later, not to mention a person that Candide killed and his own sweetheart, who was supposed to have been raped and killed.
The beautiful become ugly, the ugly were once beautiful, the pauper becomes rich and then again a pauper. All of these are told in jumbled sentences that make your head spin.
Intended as a parody but is too juvenile and confusing to have the intended effect in these modern times.
2/10
- – Krishna