The Past Present in the Present

To finish the book I had just left the conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. I found out as I read them that first, Marco Polo ratifies that every city he narrated about, he said something about Venice. He continues explaining the reason he did this and he says: “Memory’s images, once they are fixed in words are erased. Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.” (Pg. 87)

I find this quote very powerful. Maybe because I also believe once you talk about one memory you are letting it out thus letting it go. Instead if you keep it to yourself you won’t forget it. This is just the way I see things and weather it is or it is not true, when I read this fragment I felt completely sympathetic to Marco Polo’s explanation.

Polo and the Emperor start talking about the past, memories and dreams. Khan says that Marco Polo’s narrations of the cities are actually a journey through his own memory. Meaning he is describing only what he knows because he has experienced it. That is basically how every human being works, from experience. Even when we say we don’t like looking to the past, or we want to start again, the past is always influencing us and shaping us to do everything. Think about it, even when we say, “I want to erase my past, start form zero” the past is still present and it is the one making us do that decision. 
When Marco Polo tells Khan about his experience in Adelma, the second City & the dead, he sees his grandmother, his father and a fisherman he had seen when he was a kid. These characters are part of his memories, of his past. This ratifies the Khan’s words that Marco Polo is doing a journey through his memories. The past is always existing and influencing the present. 

"City of Canals"

In my past blog I briefly mentioned how most of the cities narrated are described with canals, wells, lakes and other water sources. Even though I thought it was a weird coincidence the only thing I could think about was weather he was narrating the same city. As I continued reading, one specific city caught my attention by the emphasis on the canals.

Esmeralda. Trading City number five. It was the city of water, made up by a network of canals and streets. As Marco Polo continues describing this city, he mentions that to go from one place to another there is always the option of going by land or by boat.

Think about it. Picture this city. “…It is not a straight line but a zigzag that ramifies in tortuous optional routes…”(Pg. 88). 

Now tell me, what came into your mind? Another city maybe? A city you do know or have at least heard about?

Well, I hope you are thinking of Venice. Yes, the “City of Canals”.

If we go a little into history you should know that Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant. Does this mean that Esmeralda is actually Venice? Maybe. Taking it further, I believe all the cities are Venice.

So answering my questions, it is not that there is no city. There is one city, Venice, and Marco Polo is adding more fiction to it to narrate it to the emperor.

Even though at first I was reluctant to accept this idea, it was confirmed in class. There is actually only one city.

As I read the last cities, I saw another pattern: rats. Many of the cities had something to do with rats, either there were rats in the sewers or he compares the behavior of the people to rats. In the fourth Hidden City, Theodora, rats were the last enemy for man in terms of the possession of the city. I decided to look up what it was with rats and Venice and I found out that during the 17^th century the “black plague”, otherwise known as "Italian Plague" roamed Venice. It was caused by the large amounts of plague infested rats brought by merchant ships that arrived here. Maybe that’s why rats were continuously mentioned.

Anyways. Now we know that there are no real cities, they are all describing Venice in different ways.

 Here is some proof that there still are rats in Venice :). 

Tying the Knots

Gods.

An important ongoing theme in the book.

Gods are first mentioned on Cities & Memory 1. When Diomira is described to have a “bronze statue of all the gods” (Pg. 7)

Cities & Memory 5, Maurilia, “the gods who live beneath names and above places have gone off without a word and outsiders have settled in their places.” (pg.31)

Cities and Signs 1, the city of Tamara, “from the doors of the temples the gods’ statues are seen, each portrayed with his attributes-…” (Pg.13).

Thin Cities 1, Isaura. It is explained that there are two kinds of religions in this city. “The city’s gods… live in the depths, in the black lake that feeds the underground streams. According to others, the gods live in the buckets that rise, suspended form a cable…” (Pg. 20)

Can there be an important message behind the gods? Is Calvino trying to tell us something about religion?  I mean, apart from the fact that religion is an important part of a community’s character and culture, does it have something else?

While looking for patterns in religion and gods, I found that water is also mentioned a lot. Canals, seas, wells, ships, lakes, streams are all mentioned whilst describing the cities. It sometimes made me think Marco Polo was narrating the same city but with different descriptions. 

If you pay close attention while reading you’ll find, or at least I did, that in many of the cities descriptions such as stairways, canals, seas, and statues within others, are constant and although barely mentioned, they are the things that make the cities alike. Not only material things, but for example in the cities of Cities & Desires, most, if not all of them talk about a way to earn money or wealth. Either by working, trading, or family monopolies they are obtaining a form of wealth. Fulfilling their desires. It also shows the consequences of excess, when it mentions that even though the citizens or visitors enjoy fulfilling their desires, they are after all the slaves of those desires. 

No Invisible Cities

So as I mentioned before, I read the book according to the type of city. I did this to find patterns between each city that were put together under the same category.

Cities & Memory. Diomira, Isidora, Zaira, Zora and Maurilia. They all have something to do with memories, obviously. Dimomira, the foreigner feels like all the things from this city are familiar. Isidora is the desired city, the city of the foreigner’s dreams. However, it is like a memory because in the desired city the man is a young man, but here he is already old, therefore, “desires are already memories” (pg. 8) Zaira consists of the relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past. The past events are all parts of the memories.

Before I say what Zora has to do with memories, I have to say Zora is the one that made me more curious of the five memory cities… “Zora, a city that no one, having seen it, can forget.” (Pg.15) “In order to be more easily remembered, Zora has languished, disintegrated, disappeared. The earth has forgotten her.” (Pg. 16)

Then no one has ever seen Zora because no one can ever forget it once they’ve seen it. Then how can Marco Polo describe the city so richly? This immediately made me go back to the connection we had done in class about the Emperor’s New Clothes. Maybe there really are no cities, and he is just making up all the descriptions for the Kublai Khan. Can that be possible?

Maurilia is quite complex too. “It is pointless to ask whether the new ones are better or worse than the old, since there is no connection between them, just as the old post cards do not depict Maurilia as it was, but a different city which by chance, was called Maurilia, like this one.” (Pg. 31)  It this part telling us that the past and present of this city is so different it seems like a completely different one? Is it another city? Or does this follow my theory that there are really no cities at all? After all, the title is Invisible Cities….

Women in the City

As I looked at the table of contents of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, I was deciding which way to read it. First I thought I wanted to be original, so I might as well not read it the conventional way. I decided to read all the number ones first then the number twos and so on. As I read I realized it would be better if I read all the cities with the same names first and thus it would be easier to see the patterns in each city that gave them their names.

While I was color-coding the chapters (yes, I color coded them) so that when I read it it was faster I, noticed two patterns. First, every name corresponds to five cities. Meaning there are five Cities and Memory, five Cities and eyes and so on. Second, all the cities are named after woman. For that I have not found an explanation, but I’m positive it will be something important.

For now what I really know is that women have an important role in the cities. Not only because their names are female names, but also because most of Marco Polo’s narrations have woman in their cities. For example the fifth City and Desire, Zobeide, was created because men of various places had the same dream. “They saw a women running at night through and unknown city; she was seen from behind, with long hair, and she was naked. They dreamed of perusing her. As they twisted and turned, each of them lost her.” (Pg. 45) To try and find her they created the city, each one adding a different detail from their dream. So in other words they basically created the city because of a woman. 

Another example is in the fourth Cities and Signs, Hypatia, “You have to go to the stables and riding rings to see the beautiful women who mount the saddle, thighs naked, greaves on their calves, and as soon as a young foreigner approaches, they fling him on the piles of hay or sawdust and press their firm nipples against him.” (Pg.48)

I believe this pattern with woman will be something important. For now I will keep on looking for more of these patterns and signs. 

Essence will Perdure

So genes are the selfish things inside our DNA that make us how we are anatomically. That must be clear by now.

Now memes. What are they exactly?

I’d like to define it as an idea, a cultural idea to be more precise. This memes are not transmitted by sexual reproduction, as genes, but by exchange of information, being written, talked, and/or seen. Everything that you have been taught in school, at home or in your religious institution, is a meme.

Dawkins says, “Our genes may be immortal but the collection of genes that is any one of us is bound to crumble away.” (pg.199) Meaning that even when our genes are constantly trying to move on from generation to generation, the collection of genes will only last one generation. On the other hand, memes, if able to contribute in a big way to the world’s culture, are bound to last much longer than the collection of genes.

This chapter made me go back to my philosophy class where we read Sigmund Freud’s, Civilizations and its Discontents. I found an interesting connection between Freud and Dawkins that helped me understand both texts better. 

Freud, talks about biology and archeology giving an example of all the changes that Rome has gone through. The monuments and constructions are no longer present on their original form,  (the “collection of genes”). Instead, there are reconstructions of reconstructions of the original monument. These reconstructions try to imitate the original constructions demonstrating that the essence, or idea of the original construction (the meme) is present, even when many centuries have gone by and the interpretations have changed and grown apart from the original.

Genes have to face competition in order to survive right? Memes do too. However, now a days memes don’t only have to compete with each other but with the commodities in the external world. The TV, radio, books, are all now competing with the memes. Therefore, in order for a meme to transcend into future generations it must, first, be strong enough to win the attention of the brain winning over its rival memes and commodities, and second be good enough to be passed on not only by one person, but by many people to other brains. 

Teamwork!

Teamwork!

Not really.

Individual self interest really.

It is clear that individual organisms need others, but is it just to individually survive and be able to pass on their genes or do they really care about the others?

As depressing as this might sound, organisms use other organisms form the same species to be able to survive longer. For example animals that live in herds, they do not really care about the companion of each other because they are best friends. No. What is really going on is that they are stuck with the others so they can live longer. They are actually just worried about their self-benefit but in order to benefit they must give in a little too. However, when it comes to danger and when these animals know that one of the herd will possibly die, they have to options: send the alarm call or apply Zahavi’s theory.
Zahavi’s theory states that for example in gazelles, the signal or alarm call is intended to the predators. When danger and death are inevitable they will do anything, even put in risk their herd members life, so they will survive. No matter how selfish it might be.
So, when you see animals working together they are not actually working together. They are just using each other for their individual gain.

Sad huh? Not really. You do the exact same thing.

Two things I can say about this, first, humans are not the only selfish species, second, it is in our genes to be selfish. The most selfish organism is the one who will survive and we all want to survive really, so we have too. We have no other option, and neither the animals that constantly have to face their predators. For example, when Dawkins sets the case of the birds and the parasite. Bird A helps Bird B take the tick off, but when Bird A goes to Bird B for help Bird B just slacks off. Who gains the most from this? Bird B obviously. Bird B won the benefits without paying the costs.

Even when species have to do symbiosis, so they can live longer.  They have to partner up with another species both contribute in some way to become the fittest and survive longer. Even when this may sound like working together and teamwork it really isn’t. They are doing what ever they can to survive even when they have to collaborate with another one it just on their best individual interest. 

'Survival of the Stable'

 Stable: “A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent enough or common enough to deserve a name.” (Pg. 12 The Selfish Gene) Definition: Adj. Not likely to fall or give away, steady

    Replicator: “We will call it Replicator. It may not necessarily have been the biggest or the most complex molecule around, but it had the extraordinary property of being able to create copies of itself.” (Pg. 15 The Selfish Gene) Definition: noun. Something that makes an exact copy of itself; reproduces


Template: “The replicator would act as a template not for an identical copy, but for a kind of ‘negative’, which would in its turn re-make an exact copy of the original positive” (pg. 16 The Selfish Gene) Definition: noun.  Something serving as a model





Longevity: “Replicators of high longevity would therefore tend to become more numerous and, other things being equal, there would have been an ‘evolutionary trend’ towards greater longevity in the population of molecules.” (Pg. 17 The Selfish Gene) Definition: Noun. Length or duration of life



   Evolution: “Evolution is something that happens, willy-nilly, in spite of all the efforts of the replicators (and nowadays of the genes) to prevent it happening.” (Pg. 18 The Selfish Gene) Definition: noun. Change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by processes such as mutation, natural selection and genetic drift





Competition:  “We can now see the less that less-favored varieties must actually become less numerous because of competition, and ultimately many of their lines must have gone extinct” (pg.19 The Selfish Gene) Definition: noun. The act of competing, rivalry for supremacy, survival.

The End to the Best of All Possible Worlds.

On one of my blogs I wondered if Candide and Cunégonde would ever have a chance to be together and have their happy ending. Well the answer to that is they kind of do. Candide goes through a series of problems but at last gets to Constantinople where Lady Cunégonde is washing dishes as a job. She is quite ugly but Candide doesn’t mind and is willing to kill the Baron again, so the two of them can get married. Yes, Candide had already killed the Baron, well, it turns out he didn’t really die, he was saved by an apothecary, and as for Dr. Pangloss well, he is alive too. Even though he was hanged he was tied up incorrectly so he was still breathing, and the doctor who was going to dissect him, helped him. Back to my point, this shows how much Candide loved Cunégonde, so much, he killed three men for her, left Eldorado, where everything was much better, and was determined to re-kill The Baron.

When all the people that influenced Candide the most throughout his adventures are reunited, we can clearly see a contrast in the opinions, which I believe represents the different perspective of men with respect to society and life overall. Martin, pessimist however sincere, Pangloss incredibly optimist, the old woman, an experienced person filled with advice and Candide, the innocent, naïve yet very sincere and correct.

Candide throughout the entire novel is asking people and himself about Pangloss’s idea, that all is for the best. At certain points he is sure that it is not true. Other times however, he  believes that he is right. By the end of all his adventures he figures out that there is no such thing as “the best of all possible worlds” that it is our job to keep working on what we have to make it better and to get as close as that world as we can. I believe that is what Voltaire was trying to tell us all along. That we can’t just accept how the world is today because it is the best we can. No. We have to work and change in order to change it and to make it what we want it. I also believe that he is telling us that we should not spend so much time worrying or complaining about our miseries, instead we should concentrate on the good things or at least try to fix them.

“… We must go on and work in the garden.” (Pg. 144)

Society on the Hands of Wealth

While in the first chapters we saw Voltaire constantly criticizing optimism, I believe he is now making a point on pessimism. Martin, a man Candide found in Surinam keeps on finding the bad side of everything. This however, doesn’t bother me as much as optimism because he says he has never found the good part to anything due to the fact that his life is miserable. I understand him and even though it gives you a feeling of depression I prefer him than Dr. Pangloss’ optimism.

Moreover, what I really want to talk about in this blog is how as I read some chapters I couldn’t stop thinking about a book I read in 8^th grade called The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Long story short: there is a very poor family whose son is stung by a scorpion and they don’t have enough money so the doctor refuses to see them. However the father finds the biggest and prettiest pearl ever seen. When the doctor hears that the father found this pearl he immediately goes and tries to cure the baby. The baby is already healthy by a homemade remedy but the parents don’t know this so the doctor tricks them. At the end he gets greedy and finally he accidentally kills his own baby. The resemblance between this book and Candide is that when Candide got sick, the doctor instantly went to help him. “As he wore an enormous diamond ring on his finger, and a prodigiously heavy cash-box had been noticed amongst his luggage, he was soon attended by two doctors whom he had not send for…”(Pg. 97) just like in The Pearl the doctors show their interest and how greedy they are. They will only help others if they have enough money to be paid. For the record, I am not criticizing all doctors. No. Actually I admire them. However, we must not deny societies before and now a days work like that. Benefiting only the ones who can afford it. And its not only doctors it’s everyone.

After being in such a heavenly place, like Eldorado, they start facing reality again, first being stolen by a Dutch captain, and then finding a slave who his own mother sold into slavery. Then being tragically getting his hand “chopped off” and one leg. The first one while working on a factory, the second one as he was trying to escape. Here Candide once again looses all faith and questions Dr. Pangloss and optimism: “Oh Pangloss! A scandal like this never occurred to you! But it’s the truth, and I shall have t renounce that optimism of yours in the end.” (Pg. 86)

 The contrast in which Voltaire shows us both societies is huge. I mean, in one place people have all the riches in the world however they are so simple they don’t need them, on the other, everyone either has a lot or has nothing but both have the need for more.

Desirous Societies

“It is probably the country where all goes well; for there must obviously be some such place. And whatever Professor Pangloss might say, I often noticed that all went badly in Westphalia.” (Pg.77)

Eldorado… a mythical country said to be filled with gold and silver. However in Candide, it’s a lot more than that. It’s the example of a perfect country, where no courts, prisons, or churches exist because they are not needed. I believe Voltaire uses Eldorado to demonstrate a Utopia. Even Candide realizes this. I mean, after being watching all the gold and silver just laying on the streets with people being not so greedy compared to what Europe or Westphalia was… It would be hard not to see this, the simplicity of the people I mean.

Its funny how Voltaire compares Westphalia to Eldorado specially in this two phrases: “The Baron was one of the most influential noblemen in Westphalia, for his house had a door and several windows and his hall was actually draped with tapestry.” (Pg 19) vs. “They walked over to a modest little house, and went in it, The door was mere silver, and the rooms were paneled with nothing better than gold […] It is true the hall was incrusted only with rubies and emeralds, but everything was so well designed as to compensate for this extreme simplicity” (Pg. 78) I think I don’t even have to write down what I am thinking, because I am pretty sure you are thinking the same thing. They can’t ever be compared.

I think with Eldorado Voltaire demonstrates how greedy, ambitious, and complicated people from Europe, and actually all around the world are.  For example while in Europe there were continuous wars concerning religions, while in Eldorado they only believe in one God, they are completely sure about it, and they don’t ask for things, instead they thank him. This is something people don’t do that often nowadays, demonstrating the greediness of humankind. 

Imagine you got to this mythical country where gold is being played with by nine year-olds in the street. What would be your first thought? Get some of this gold and take it back to Europe, you will certainly become rich. That’s exactly what Candide and Cacambo think. They are honest enough not to steal it instead they ask for it, what do you expect the answer to be? No, right, or that was at least what I thought, actually it would be more like this;  “you greedy Europeans only care about money right? Well too bad leave immediately!” and probably with some bad words. However that was absolutely not even close to what they got. Instead the King himself said “The King laughed, ‘I don’t understand your European taste for our yellow mud, but take all you want, and much good may it do to you.’” (Pg. 83) Clearly not what you expected huh? Well that’s exactly Voltaire’s point: we should all be more less selfish and greedy.

We are not able to become the society we wish for because we are to concentrated on our ambitions, money, being better than the rest, which is not bad, however when we get to the point were we wish the others bad things, then there is a problem.  

A Soap Opera

Añadir leyenda

Candide and Lady Cunégonde really have a Mexican soap opera love story. Every time they are able to be together something happens that breaks them apart, just like in the soap operas. They have prohibited love. First, when Cunégonde is “experimenting” Pangloss “findings” with Candide, he is expelled form Westphalia. Later, while he is faced with the Bulgars and beaten up as a form of Auto-da-fé, she is disemboweled by the same Bulgars who kill her parents. However, after facing this variety of adversities, and thinking that the other is dead, they are somehow, reunited.

Of course everyone thinks that while in Portugal, they will be together, marry, have children and live happily ever after.
However, just like in any soap opera, they are separated again when they get to Buenos Ayres.

This time, if I may dare say, it is Candide’s fault. Basically because the Governor of Buenos Ayres shows his interests on Lady Cunégonde, and asks Candide if she is married to the captain. Candide is not able to lie so he tells the Governor that they will soon be married. Then the Governor asks Candide for some time alone with Cunégonde and Candide as naïve as one can get, leaves them alone. Of course, as any man would, the Governor asks Lady Cunégonde to marry him, and Cunégonde decides to ask the Old Lady for advice, and she as any other woman in the right mind would do tells her to marry the governor.

 I mean if you compare Candide, to this prestigious Governor… You would probably choose the Governor. However, before Lady Cunégonde has a chance to make a decision, some Spaniards are on their way to kill the responsible for the murder of the Great Inquisitor. Candide has to run, and leaves Cunégonde alone.

What’s even worse is that Candide in the middle of his sorrow, says, “My darling Cunégonde, to have to leave you just when the Governor promised to come to our wedding” (pg 61)… its like dude please! How can one be so simple-minded? Seriously.

Poor Candide, he has to face all this obstacles: the competition with a much more powerful man, the rumors that one of them died, the exile one of them has to face to be able to be with his dear Lady Cunégonde. Wait, I think I’ve heard that story before… Oh yeah, in all those corny soap operas I used to watch when I was younger. The ones that keep on getting longer and longer and never seem to end because the main couple keeps on having to face obstacles and you just want them to end up together, happily ever after. But it just won’t end and the real reason behind it is because the ratings are so high the producers can’t end them just now.

That’s exactly what’s happening to Candide.

The difference is that on those shows you know that the couple will somehow overcome anything and end up together. In Candide, I am really not sure. I mean anything can happen.

Will Cunégonde and Candide have a chance to be together forever and have their “happily ever after”?

By the way, just though this would be the perfect song for Candide and Lady Cunégonde.  

Irony of the Church

I am sure Voltaire is trying to show us how the Catholic Church looks like such a fine institution when it really has so many flaws. For example, when the diamonds and moidores are stolen form Lady Cunégonde, and the first person they suspect of is the Reverend Friar who slept in the same inn as they did. “I don’t like jumping to a hasty conclusion, but I remember that he entered our room twice and left the inn before we did.” (pg. 47). I wonder why  the friar entered the room twice? Maybe he wasn’t pleased with the jewelry.
Candide tries to take a little guilt of the Friar by telling them how Pangloss believed that everyone had the equal right to goods, so he must have left them enough to finish the journey. On the other hand, Voltaire makes it so the Roman Catholic Church looks worse, because when Lady Cunégonde looks they have absolutely nothing left. No one would ever suspect a man from the church, a friar, would steal jewels, first because it is considered a sin, in fact the seventh commandment is DO NOT STEAL and second because they are one of the most influential examples to men, and they teach us every Sunday what we are not supposed to do. On my first blog, I did a list of things that Voltaire mocks in his novel, well, I am going to add one more thing to that list. The church.

Voltaire not only demonstrated this when he made the Friar the thief, but when he talks about the inquisition, because with the Auto-de-fés they are supposedly punishing those who don’t believe in God by burning them alive, or hanging them in front of millions of people when again, the ten commandments say don’t murder, its an ironyl, and not precisely one done by Voltaire. Another example is after Candide kills the inquisitor and the Jew, “The cardinal was buried in a beautiful church, and Issachar was thrown on the dunghill”. (pg.46) Just because Issachar was a Jew he was thrown to the sewage waters. The irony here, is that the Inquisitor probably deserved to be thrown on the dunghill, simply because he was an inquisitor and punished people by torturing them, period. 

A Mature Side of Candide

This is perhaps the couple of chapters with most irony I’ve read in my entire life. I mean not even those comedy movies can compete against it. When the University of Coimbra states that to prevent any more earthquakes, 4 people should be burnt alive in a ceremonial matter. Those four people include Pangloss and Candide. Candide miraculously gets out alive, however Pangloss is hanged… 2 days later another earthquake occurs. Irony? Neh, not at all.

“Pangloss and Candide were led off separately and closeted in exceedingly cool rooms, where they suffered no inconvenience from the sun…”(pg.36). These exceedingly cool rooms were actually prison cells and where they were going to keep them until their sacrifice. Doesn’t seem so exceedingly cool anymore, do they? I don’t really know if Voltaire’s irony gets me mad or not. I mean, the fact that he is not even trying to trick us, that it’s just his style, is what bothers me: That I fall every time and have to read it over and that’s when I get it.

I got to see another part of Candide as well, I didn’t see him as that naïve and kind of dumb person I had seen in the beginning and who I criticized on my first blog, no, I got to see him as a normal person with feelings. Someone who has faced a lot of misfortune and after being strong for so long he is about to break down. “If this is the best of all possible worlds, […] what can the rest be like? […] But when it comes to my dear Pangloss being hanged-the greatest of philosophers- I must know the reason why. And was it part of the scheme of things that my dear Anabaptist (The best of men!) Should be drowned in sight of land? And lady Cunégonde, that pearl amongst women! Was it really necessary for her to be disemboweled?” (Pg. 37) I completely sympathized with Candide in this part. I actually saw a part of me there. Sometimes, humans have to stay strong and build courage from places they don’t have against an adversity but there just comes a point where its just impossible to keep on acting like if everything was right and that’s when we break down. That’s exactly what happened to Candide, he tried to accept all this calamities with help of Pangloss, because “that’s how things were supposed to happen”, but he got to the point where he needed answers, just like any other person.

Oh, and by the way, for those of you reading the book, auto-da-Fé means act of faith in Portuguese. It was a public ceremony typical of the Spanish inquisition where religious leaders punished the heretics, protestants, Muslim, or Jewish. Thought you should know!

Bonjour Candide!

Voltaire

We recently started reading Candide by Voltaire. For those of you who are not familiar with Voltaire, he was a French philosopher who took a major role in the Enlightenment.

Even though I have just read the beginning of Candide, it has been clear that Voltaire is mocking various aspects of life and ultimately, the reader. The way he uses elements of satire to ridicule the reader is actually very entertaining, for me at least.  I found myself reading a paragraph, re reading it, and then, asking my self what did Voltaire really mean when he wrote this. After doing this for like 15 pages I had three conclusions.

Number one, he is making fun of optimistic people. He keeps writing things like “For all this, […] is a manifestation of the rightness of things, since if there is a volcano at Lisbon it could not be anywhere else. For it is impossible for things not to be where they are, because everything is for the best” (pg 33). The context of this phrase is when following an earthquake many people are dead, and after having dinner with the moaning survivors he tries to calm them down by saying this. I don’t know you, but if I was in the position of those survivors, my entire community destroyed and a foreign person comes and tells me this, the only thing that would go through my head is a way to shut that “optimistic” person up. Seriously.

Number two: He makes fun of other philosophers. Maybe "criticizes" would be a better word. For this he uses Dr. Pangloss, Candide’s tutor, who gets caught by Lady Cunégonde, daughter of the most influential nobleman in Westphilia,  “misbehaving” with another woman behind some bushes. He later gets STD.  I mean clearly not a common behavior in the philosophers’ stereotype.

And Number 3: He ridicules naïve people. The main character Candide, gives us a feeling of someone very naïve.  Every problem he goes through of what I’ve read has been because he was extremely naïve. Which makes me think maybe he is implying that optimistic people make them naïve. 

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