Candide

You never know with classics whether they’re going to be good or deadly dull, which is why I’ve never read Voltaire before. But it’s good stuff. Entertaining, very funny, extremely readable and thought-provoking, too. The humour lies in the juxtaposition between style and substance, form and content; it’s written almost like a fairy-tale or fable, but it’s talking about very shocking things. Rape, murder, the fallible church, and all the ways in which people can die or be hurt, either by nature or by man.

It’s considered a key text for the Enlightenment, because of the way it illustrates the main theories of the day. There’s rationalism, there’s Rousseau’s noble savage, there’s optimism, there’s dualism, there’s all the major philosophies of that time – in fact it’s like a mini Sophie’s World. Voltaire doesn’t only mock them, but he provides real pathos in the voices of those who are attempting to live through such suffering while being told that the suffering is good. I really love the old woman who cries that it’s insane the way we refuse to put down the burden which torments us, when it’s so easy to lay it down forever – the burden of living.

Voltaire also makes clear that it’s not only suffering– earthquakes, wars, the Spanish Inquisition – but it’s also our own participation in creating suffering that we’re unable to avoid. Candide, the innocent boy who wants to believe in a good world and in man’s goodness, ends up causing all sorts of havoc, including murder, without any intention of doing such things at all. The currency of good intentions is worthless.

The little fable, which is a journey, which is a riddle, ends with a riddle. Candide’s last line – “we must also cultivate our garden” – could be (and I’m sure has been) explained a thousand different ways. I like to think that there’s some sense of hopefulness; that perhaps the only way to find any meaning at all is in creating it oneself.