Candide: Ou, L'Optimisme

Voltaire

Michel Forest

Publié par Houghton Mifflin, le 01 février 1969

149 pages

Résumé

Political satire doesn't age well, but occasionally a diatribe contains enough art & universal mirth to survive long after its timeliness has passed. Candide is such a book. Penned by that Renaissance man of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, Candide is steeped in the political & philosophical controversies of the 1750s. But for the general reader, the novel's driving principle is clear enough: the idea (endemic in the day) we live in the best of all possible worlds, & apparent folly, misery & strife are actually harbingers of a greater good we cannot perceive, is hogwash. Telling the tale of the good-natured but star-crossed Candide (Mr. Magoo armed with deadly force), as he travels the world struggling to be reunited with his love, Lady Cunegonde, the novel smashes such ill-conceived optimism to splinters. Candide's tutor, Dr. Pangloss, is steadfast in his philosophical good cheer, in the face of more & more fantastic misfortune; Candide's other companions always supply good sense in the nick of time. Still, as he demolishes optimism, Voltaire pays tribute to human resilience. In so doing he gives the book a pleasant indomitability common to farce. Says one character, a princess turned one-buttocked hag by unkind Fate: "I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most melancholy propensities; for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one's very being & yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?"--Michael Gerber