Candide
by Voltaire
The real key to a great satire is its ability to be specific enough to destroy and mock its current targets in such a way that it will not be lost on future generations. For instance, Candide, Voltaire’s masterpiece, is essentially an attack on Gottfried Leibniz and any and all philosophers whose views were so overwhelmingly optimistic as to warrant a focused literary attack. Today, this probably means nothing to you. This book was published in 1759 so it could hardly be further away from our society today. Even the titles of the chapters have the feel of Don Quixote (i.e.-”How Candide and Cacambo were received by the Jesuits in Paraguay”), a book that was published in 1605.
Why does Candide still translate to today’s society? Is it still important? Figuratively, yes, it still translates quite well; literally, it may be up for debate as the writing style might be too much for the casual reader to enjoy. So, I will put this book into a modern context: Candide is like South Park and South Park is like Candide. As previously mentioned, Voltaire loathed the ultra-optimistic view of life that people like Leibniz held in that, no matter what was happening in the world, we are all living in the best of all possible worlds and situations. How did Voltaire reconcile his flat-out disgust at this farcical outlook on life? By writing a story in which his characters are publicly flogged, raped, sent to be hanged or set on fire, witnessing earthquakes and shipwrecks, witnessing the deaths of loved ones, and being conned out of valuables in the attempt to find loved ones–all while constantly making jabs (both directly and indirectly) at his enemies and people with whom he disagreed with. This is what binds Voltaire and Matt Stone and Trey Parker: they go out of their way to show people why they should see certain ideas and people as preposterous and wholly untrustworthy. Great satire transcends the targets of its attack. And just like in South Park when Stan or Kyle invariably say towards the end of an episode, “Hey, you know what, I learned something today…” Candide ends with a positive ending (as much as it can given the overall circumstances) that puts everything into a proper perspective.
The story starts with Candide being evicted from the castle he lives in when he is caught trying to kiss the baron’s daughter–the voluptuous Cunégonde. From here, Candide is flogged and forced to join the Bulgarian army and shortly thereafter finds out that the same army has raided Cunégonde’s castle and killed everyone inside.
The rest of the story follows a melodramatic and fantastical mold–characters who are believed to be dead tend to show up seemingly out of the blue, escaping death by the narrowest measures; the characters witness events that happened in Voltaire’s time (the 1775 Lisbon earthquake) as a means to advance the author’s own social commentary; and the overall idea that everything is exaggerated, from the violence to the happiness (the loving dialogue between Cunégonde and Candide early on is an over-the-top jab at the typical romance novel, and the midpoint of the story involving the riches of El Dorado is blatantly amplified to balance out the theme of despair).
The Barnes & Noble Classics edition of this book (pictured above) is one hundred thirty pages long but, after you factor in the illustrations and the short chapters, you are looking at a book that is probably only one hundred pages long. For as scant a story as it is, it certainly has a lot to say and it treads the line that great satires must, for it visits the absurd while never forgetting about the very real message of the book. In one of the most perspicacious conversations in the book, Candide is talking to a man on a ship who he has recently met and, the man, Martin, hears from Candide the story of how Candide’s sheep have been stolen by a Dutch robber. The robber meets his fate on a boat that capsizes and the following dialogue ensues:
“You see,” said Candide to Martin, “that vice is sometimes punished. This villain, the Dutch skipper, has met with the fate he deserved.”
“Very true,” said Martin, “but why should the passengers be doomed also to destruction? God has punished the knave, and the Devil has drowned the rest.”
It is this kind of attention to philosophical detail that still makes Candide relevant today. Though Cartman, Big Gay Al, Stan, and Butters may be absent from the book, one cannot dispute that the genius of Candide and the genius of South Park are somewhat one and the same. Similarly, one would be hard pressed to disagree with the realization that the characters arrive at at the end of the book–that despite all of the horrors that occur in our world we all need to ultimately realize that are gardens need cultivating.
