Although Voltaire is not on top of my list, I have to read him for the experience. His most famous piece, Candide, is a pithy theological satire on Leibnizian optimism which addresses the existence of evil in God’s supposedly benign creation. The story is about a wealthy and well-protected young man called Candide, who was indoctrinated by an optimist view and believed everything happened for the best possible reasons. Unfortunately, his comfortable lifestyle soon came to a close; later in the adventure, Candide experienced all kinds of calamities, which eroded his worldview.
The book received critical acclaim for its spirit of tolerance and skepticism that echoed the Enlightenment period. But personally, I am not particularly impressed with the writing. Unless done phenomenally, I think satires are usually crass and distasteful, in that they present the central theme so forcefully that your gut would twitch upon reading; every once in a few lines, they introduce dry, comical comments that amount to no aesthetic effects but to hint at the same subject (making satirical comments towards optimism). As I am all about lyricism, it gets tiresome to read a book that has little to show in evocativeness, or elegance.
On top of that, none of the characters have psychological depth, given they serve a paragon of some sort. Candide is the naive one, representing the believing mass of the Leibnizian doctrine. You wouldn’t expect him reacting otherwise besides acting gullible to everything people said. Pangloss, surely Leibniz himself, wore the ‘all is well’ slogan under all circumstances, despite them looking conspicuously otherwise. And Martin, the cynic, bore the voice of Voltaire, banging the understated stupidity of others. Of course, these oversimplified caricatures can be excused for the intention behind the story. But their simple characterisation left me faintly cold.
However, I can appreciate Candide as an attempt to use critical thinking to challenge the effete aspects of the society. There were terrible things (such as natural disasters and wars) that could never justify themselves as an appropriate punishment of human sins. It would be foolish to honour a thought system – preaching all is well, and all bad things happened for a good reason – that did not comfort anyone or change anything for the better. The burden for a way out was on us to make peace with misfortunes and find remedies. The social utility of this satire, I suppose, was offering a spiritual antidote to such a religious dogma. In fairness, Voltaire’s bitterness and Leibniz’s wilful blindness both offered a solution to human tragedies through acknowledging the world as a cruel place. The nuance is though, instead of passively accepting everything as the result of a predestined design, Voltaire took the leap to lament the pain, digressing from religious narratives.
Now, what’s the next step having dissolved the ideological pretence? Voltaire addressed this question through the voice of Candide in the final section of the book: “we must cultivate our own garden.” In the end, Candide married Cunegonde (reluctantly), who was no longer pretty and youthful. His serviceman was worn out with work. People he had helped in the past became broke again and lost proper means to live. One day, Candide walked into an old man’s house. And having seen the vegetables and fruits and sorbets he produced Candide asked if the old man had kept a magnificent property, to which the peasant responded: “I have only twenty acres of land; I laboured it with my children to keep us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.”
It is interesting to see Voltaire set all characters in the same miserable place again. But the irony is productive. It seems to me contentment is not found in curbing tragedies, or pursuing external forms of happiness such as romance, wealth and beauty. (This is not to say they aren’t worth pursuing. I for one, pursue them.) But they eventually fade and fluctuate. Work, at the end of the day, is what grounds people, although Voltaire didn’t pinpoint what the nature of work was. One can see ‘the garden’ simply as work itself; cultivating one’s own garden is harvesting one’s labour. Having something to do keeps us occupied, and it is a useful thing. In a more modern sense, ‘one’s own garden’ can also mean ‘passion’ ‘hobbies’ ‘loves’, something that sustains us for life. This way, Voltaire again stands superior to Leibniz. We really don’t have much more to say about worldly tragedies, but the good news is there are things we can control.
Siming Lan 