{"id":23241,"date":"2024-09-22T19:36:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-22T18:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=23241"},"modified":"2024-09-29T21:16:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T20:16:11","slug":"voltaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=23241","title":{"rendered":"MiSC\/PHiLOSOPHY: Voltaire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Parisian statue of Voltaire, recently cleaned!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m currently listening to this<\/a> (an In Our Time podcast on Voltaire\u2019s Candide<\/em>). Which lead me to start reading his Letters on England<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many moons ago, a friend recommended Candide<\/em>, so I bought the edition pictured below, and read it. Frankly? I hated it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hated this!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This was a major disappointment, as practically everything I\u2019d heard about Voltaire up till that point had predisposed me to loving both him and his writings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one is at all literary or culturally minded, in a European context, Voltaire\u2019s going to figure. I\u2019d encountered references to him countless times. But it wasn\u2019t until we watched an episode of Kenneth Clarke\u2019s Civilisation<\/em>, in which he featured prominently, that I decided to take a keener interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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K Clarke\u2019s fab\u2019 sledgehammer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I think I\u2019ll have to revisit Candide<\/a><\/em>, at some point. Maybe it needs a contemporary rewrite? Perhaps even a graphic novel treatment? I\u2019m usually horrified by the mere idea of such \u2018re-boots\u2019. But, as written – at least in the translation I read – Candide was an unenjoyable unfunny slog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point I returned to the podcast. About midway through. One of the pundits is saying \u2018The narrative structure is an attack on Leibniz.\u2019 By which he means two things (as the fuller context makes clear): one is the attack on the Optimism, of the subtitle, and two is chaos vs order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The narrative of Candide feels like utter chaos. A constant series of unrelated episodes. Leibniz, by contrast, suggests that all is actually ordered to a Divine plan. It may look shitty to us. But from a Gods\u2019 eye view all is exactly as it ought to be. It\u2019s ordered and good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is interesting. For numerous reasons. On the level of pure reading, the near total lack of narrative structure reduces Candide<\/em> to a bewildering – and seemingly pointless – maelstrom of apparently random stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Er\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For a contemporary analogue, imagine the most self-indulgent of late 1960s film (see above), or – for an even more lobotomised equivalent – something like Kentucky Fried Movie<\/em>. I\u2019m not equating these films with Voltaire\u2019s ideas or intent, but the rather the viewer\/reader experience. How they feel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What strikes me, as I listen to the podcast, is how philosophy, or what I\u2019ll call intellectualism, seems to result, very often, in rather gloomy results. Perhaps deep thinking can and is often overdone? Does that mean Voltaire is saying thought\/philosophy is (worse than) useless? That\u2019s certainly a view one could<\/em> take from a passage near the end of the novel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Let us work,” said Martin, “without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Were these guys lovers who fell out?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Buddhism is another cultural efflorescence of such a \u2018mindful\u2019 or thoughtful\/philosophical approach, and, rather as with the 17th C. Encyclopaedist Bayle (mentioned here as an antecedent to Voltaire\u2019s ideas), the conclusions often reached are\u2026 that life is suffering. Buddhism goes even further; it\u2019s all suffering, and it\u2019s all illusory anyway!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are, on the face of things, extremely bleak outlooks or philosophies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going back to Voltaire. I find the way folk discuss him, his writings, life and ideas, is what – thus far – I find most compelling. Not Voltaire\u2019s writing itself. This reminds me of hearing critics discuss Christopher Nolan films. The talk sounds interesting. But the films are, I find, unwatchable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Lisbon Earthquake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Back to the podcast, and Candide. Bragg presciently observes that, in many ways, the book seems both chaotic and dashed off, as if in response to recent calamities (like the Lisbon earthquake, of 1775). Are there any underlying generalised messages?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One is the already alluded to attack on Liebniz-ian optimism. And the response to that seems to be despair at our impotence. The second, and the only sliver of hope – fannily emuff it\u2019s exactly the conclusion I\u2019ve already come to in my own \u2018real\u2019 life – is that one might, perhaps (if one is fortunate enough) carve out a little personal shangri-la somewhere, and there shelter from the madness of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth, then, for all that I find Candide<\/em> a very unenjoyable headache-inducing mess, in essence I agree with the author\u2019s intent. I just don\u2019t much like the execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Napoleon gardening, on St Helena.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Regarding the latter, perhaps rather like me – albeit I do so to virtually no audience (and the wrong ones at that) – Voltaire\u2019s totally hung up on constantly displaying his wit and erudition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway\u2026 I finally finished the In Our Time podcast. And it\u2019s interesting that the novel ends with what can and often is taken to be a Voltaire-ian admonition; \u2018We must cultivate our garden.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again I find myself in broad (if not total?) agreement with Voltaire, if this is indeed his own view, and not just another layer of ironic lampoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vandalised Voltaire, pre-clean up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m currently listening to this (an In Our Time podcast on Voltaire\u2019s Candide). Which lead me to start reading his Letters on England. Many moons ago, a friend recommended Candide, so I bought the edition pictured below, and read it. Frankly? I hated it! This was a major disappointment, as practically everything I\u2019d heard about … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MiSC\/PHiLOSOPHY: Voltaire”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saGwUa-voltaire","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23241"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23241"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23568,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23241\/revisions\/23568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}