Genre: Fiction/Philosophy
Page Count: 129
In Durant’s ‘Fallen Leaves’ which I previously read, I once again came across one of the most famous lines ever written in the history of literature or philosophy by Voltaire: ‘Cultivate your own garden’. This time, however, Voltaire’s famous line came with a bold claim from Durant, that these are the wisest words told ever by a tongue or pen.
And quite so, indeed! I’ve read ‘Candide’ now, the novel in which in this line written, and I can see, in full context, why Voltaire said it and why it is, indeed, one of the wisest things to be ever told, if not the wisest.
‘Candide’ is both the name of the novel and our young protagonist of the novel. He comes from the town of Westphalia of Germany, where he lives in the castle of lord Baron. There, he learns from the best philosopher in the whole of Germany, Pangloss, and is in love with princess Cunegonde.
One day, while having the princess alone to himself, they engage in a very innocent kiss, but one which her parents see. They kick the young Candide out of the castle, and so the long journey of Candide begins!
Our young and innocent Candide is now out in the open world, without the company of his beloved teacher; but, nevertheless, with his most absolute of teachings: ‘everything happens for the best’. So no matter how frightening and miserable his journey becomes, as we shall see, Candide would always go believing that it is the best of all possible worlds.
With such naïve optimism he begins his quixotic journey, in which he travels all over Europe, fights in a war, faces earthquakes, takes severe beatings, meets new people who become his life long companions, discovers the perfect city, gains and loses wealth, and yet everywhere he goes, he finds human evils and human suffering in abundance.
It’s a story of the decay of innocence.
And what drives him in his unending, life-threatening, and passionate journey? Love. Of course, love! That innocent kiss with Cunegonde which caused him to be thrown out, causes him still all the miseries that follow.
Voltaire’s ‘Candide’ moves with rapid pace. Wars start and finish in one paragraph, whole life stories are told in single chapters, countries are travelled in mere pages – and its thrilling. I never thought I could finish and review a novel in a day, but with this novella I could’ve pulled it off. Yet this small achievement is yet to be met with another such amazing novella.
However, let’s not forget that this novel has philosophy at its center. The themes of optimism, human evil and suffering, and worldly chaos are explored with great ease and comprehension. There’s several betting throughout this book on the common suffering of humans, where every person’s miseries surpass that of the other.
At the center of all this evil stands ‘human lust and savageness’. Women being raped, used, traded, their buttocks being cut and eaten, their bodies being torn apart in four pieces by four men – Voltaire’s short book is filled with brutalities done against women, even to the point of repulsion and irk.
In seeing a world so full of miseries, where eventually even love fails to suffice, our young Candide’s ‘everything is for the best’ reduces to ‘everything is as good as it can be’; and even that is an overstatement. Yet however bleak and realistically depressing the journey was, there comes a standing point of coping with it.
In their last stop in Turkey, and Candide along with his companions, meet an ‘old worthy’ man who tells them of the cure of living a ‘good enough’ life: ‘cultivate your own garden’. In this message, everything isn’t philosophized to be for the best, but everything instead is lived with simplicity.
Labor, says the old man, preserves men from three great evils: tedium, vice, and poverty.
Ratings: 5/5 **** (October 29, 2020)