What
No doubt you’ve heard of Voltaire (1694–1778), the great French Enlightenment Philosopher/Satirist. For most people, that’s all they know about François-Marie Arouet’s pen name. Candide, ou l'Optimisme, published in 1759, is one of his best known works. Voltaire himself was a brilliant thinker, writer, proponent of freedom, anglophile and an all-around think-for-yourself smartass. He’s the kind of guy that gets misinterpreted by later people, such as when people think of him as a strict atheist, when he was actually more of a deist, for example. The copy I’m working from is translated by Lowell Bair and first published in 1959, then again in 2003 by Bantam Classic.
Why
Because Voltaire was a huge literary figure in his own lifetime. He was a big deal known across the Western World. The novella itself is important because of its scathing criticisms of Leibnizian Optimism and Europe in the Age of Enlightenment, and it is ruthless in this mission.
The (Spoiler Free) Basics
Candide (pronounced “Kan-deed”), a young man raised in an idyllic manor, is brought up in an optimistic philosophy that is subsequently deconstructed through a brutal critique of European culture in Voltaire’s lifetime. Satire ensues.
From here on there be spoilers….
Chapter 1
A gentle lad by the name of Candide is raised in the pleasant castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia. He is tutored in Optimism by Pangloss, a philosophy that teaches things like “since pigs were made to eat, we eat pork.” Candide becomes infatuated with the Baron’s daughter Cunegonde, and the two take a cue from Pangloss “giving a lesson” to a chambermaid in the bushes, deiced to “experiment” themselves. The Baron catches them in the act and Candide flees the estate.
Chapter 2
Candide wanders into a town with the ludicrously long name of Waldberghofftrarbkdikdorff, starving and penniless. Two men in uniform (soldiers) feed him, get him drunk and conscript him into the Bulgar army. After a brutal training regimen that nearly kills him, he begs for death when the King of the Bulgars rides up and pardons him and Candide is healed up just in time to go to war.
Chapter 3
After participating in a battle, Candide deserts from the Bulgar camp and flees through several villages that have been slaughtered in graphic detail. He meets a kind Anabaptist named James who helps him out, then meets a man racked with disease.
Chapter 4
The diseased man is Pangloss, Candide’s teacher, who reveals that Cunegonde and everyone else from the Baron’s castle was slaughtered in the war. Cunegonde herself was raped and stabbed. Pangloss also reveals that he is sick with VD from Paquette, the maid from the castle, who had contracted it from a Franciscan. James the Anabaptist pays for Pangloss’ treatment & hires him. The three sail to Lisbon, but get caught in a terrible storm
Chapter 5
James saves a sailor during the storm, who in turn doesn’t save the Anabaptist when James goes overboard and drowns. The ship sinks and only Candide, Pangloss and the sailor survive & wash ashore. They reach Lisbon, which has been devastated by earthquake. The sailor starts looting corpses and goes his merry way. Candide & Pangloss run afoul of an Inquisitor who arrests Pangloss for contradicting free will & Candide for listening to him.
Chapter 6
The leaders of Portugal, in the wake of the earthquake, hold an auto-da-fe (inquisition) & execute several people on rather petty charges, such as a Biscayan marrying the godmother of his godchild & two Portuguese who refused to eat pork (either Jewish or Muslim). Candide is flogged in public & Pangloss is hanged. An aftershock rocks the city. Candide is let go & meets an old woman who tells him to follow her.
Chapter 7
The old woman cares for Candide’s wounds. He heals and she takes him to Cunegonde, who is alive and living in Lisbon.
Chapter 8
Cunegonde tells Candide how she was raped, stabbed but survived thanks to a Bulgar captain. She eventually passed into the company of a lecherous Jew named Don Issachar, moved to Portugal & the Jew and the Inquisitor became rivals for Cunegonde’s affection, though she put out for neither. Don Issachar comes home.
Chapter 9
Candide runs the Jew through with a sword when Issachar becomes furious that another man is in the house. The Inquisitor walks in, sees the body, and Candide kills him too. The old woman tells them they must ride to Cadiz after looting the house for riches.
Chapter 10
They reach Cadiz and Candide joins the Spanish military as a captain after displaying his knowledge of the Bulgar Military Drills. They set sail for the New World.
Chapter 11
The Old Woman tells her story. She was a Pope’s daughter and an Italian princess. On a sea voyage, her ship was beset by pirates and the women were taken by Muslim corsairs and repeatedly raped. They landed in Morocco, finding it in a civil war. The woman’s mother is literally pulled apart by slavering, rapacious moors, but somehow she herself survived, but wound up in a pile of corpses. An Italian eunuch finds her.
Chapter 12
The Old Woman continues. The Italian, a Neapolitan, comforts her, but then takes her and sells her to the Dey of Algiers. She survives a plague, is sold in Tripoli and passed around the Mediterranean until she wound up in a Janissary company besieged by Russians. Facing starvation, the Janissaries cut off a buttock of each of the women for food, but the Russians break through soon after and slaughter them. A French surgeon tends her wounds and she soon floats around Eastern Europe doing menial jobs, never forgetting that she is a pope’s daughter.
Chapter 13
Candide laments Pangloss’ death (again) and the ship lands at Buenos Aires. The Governor, Don Fernando de Ibaraa, y Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lamburdos, y Suza, lusts after Cunegonde and conspires against Candide, while assuring Candide that he will marry the two lovers. Agents from Spain land, looking for the murderer of the Inquisitor. Sadly, Candide is forced to flee from Buenos Aires and Cunegonde.
Chapter 14
Candide and a servant from Cadiz, Cacambo (a man of very mixed heritage) leave Cunegonde. Cacambo leads him to Paraguay and an independent Jesuit-ruled area at war with Spain. They meet the Reverend Father Provincial in charge of the camp, who turns out to be Cunegonde’s brother, thought dead. They chat cheerfully.
Chapter 15
The brother tells how he survived the sack of the castle and joined the Jesuits. Candide tells him of his intent to marry Cunegonde, which throws her brother into a rage and Candide kills him. Cacambo tells Candide to dress up like the Jesuit so they can escape the camp.
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