Voltaire's Utopia
A book review of Candide: Or Optimism, by Voltaire; translated by John Butts
WARNING: SPOILERS
I was told that my previous book review’s spoiler warning was sort of obsolete because I didn’t spoil much. There will be enormous spoilers in this review.
Candide: Or Optimism by Voltaire is unlike Gilead (a book which I’ve already reviewed) in that it doesn’t try to make the reader buy into the reality of anything that happens in the book. The plot resembles a Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit more than it does the typical novel that Gilead represents. It is comedic, and the goal is not to immerse you in some reality so that you feel emotions alongside the characters, but rather to mock the prevailing consensus in a deliberately unrealistic manner that induces one to laugh at reality.
The book then requires a different standard of evaluation for whether it is a “good book” as opposed to a more typical novel like Gilead. Rather than judging it based on what strong emotions and contemplations it conjured within me as the reader, the question instead became whether the book made me laugh, and if it sufficiently ridiculed its subject matter.
By these measurements, Candide exceeds wildly. Voltaire is known for his wit, and I certainly agreed as I read the book. In particular, its descriptions of war felt the most striking, perhaps because war continues to be an activity that purportedly glorious states still engage in, like France where Voltaire lived. The battle between the Bulgars and the Abars, who according to the translator John Butts are meant to represent the Prussians and the French, sticks out in particular.
the bayonet charge provided ‘sufficient reason’ for the death of several thousand more. The total casualties amounted to about thirty thousand. Candide . . . hid himself as best he could during this heroic butchery.
When all this was over and the rival kings were celebrating their victory with Te Deums in their respective camps, Candide . . . picked his way over piles of dead and dying, and he reached a neighbouring village on the Abar side of the border. It was now no more than a smoking ruin, for the Bulgars had burned it to the ground in accordance with the terms of international law.
My selective quotations hardly do justice for Voltaire’s wit, but the impracticality of lifting half a chapter onto here prevents me from doing more. Nevertheless, we can see here already the ways Voltaire derides how societies seem to think about war. “Butchery” has the adjective “heroic” ironically attached to it. Heroics usually result from bravery done with purpose. Someone who has to kill another human being is only a hero if the situation is desperate and their motives are noble, or otherwise it’d simply be murder. Yet many civilizations do seem to go to war and subsequently kill for no reason, like America’s war in Iraq over “weapons of mass destruction.”
That there were thirty thousand casualties, which the context indicates were equally shared, but both sides stilled declared victory and celebrated shows the general triviality and stupidity of such deadly affairs. The deaths and harms suffered by the Abar’s own people are meaningless in their evaluation of victory. The razing of the village also demonstrates the futility and hilarity of trying to map (international) law onto something as brutal and order-less as warfare.
Optimism
The book reads a bit like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I hated those books because literally nothing good happened for the protagonist. Every storyline would be so dreadful because you knew without fail that whatever positive thing was happening for the brief moment would inevitably end up crashing down disastrously. The same is the case for our eponymous main character. But unlike Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Voltaire dangles an ultimate goal in the form of Lady Cunégonde, the woman Candide loves and is constantly trying to reunite with.
The prose adopts a very cheerful and matter-of-fact telling of every mishap and gruesome act. Voltaire did this in order to mock the popular perspective on life at the time that consisted of unbridled optimism—that there is no effect without a cause, and that this is the best of all possible worlds. This outlook originated from Gottfried Leibniz’s theodicy. He argued these following axioms:
God is omnipotent and omniscient and benevolent and the free creator of the world.
Things could have been otherwise–i.e., there are other possible worlds.
Therefore, this world is the best of all possible worlds.1
These all appear to me to be reasonable, true, and as a Christian I am inclined especially to take the first point. In contrast, the way this philosophy is articulated in the book is a sort of caricaturized optimism where everything bad that occurs will eventually reveal itself as part of some good cause, thus retroactively justifying the "bad” occurrence. That is, there is no (bad) effect without a (good) cause, however late the good cause might take to manifest itself. Candide’s tutor Pangloss is the one who propounds this idea to the extreme. Pangloss is dying of syphilis as transmitted through multiple generations originating with Christopher Columbus, but argues that his plight is actually a good thing.
For if Columbus, when visiting the West Indies, had not caught this disease, which poisons the source of generation, which frequently even hinders generation, and is clearly opposed to the great end of Nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal.
Thus, there is always a “sufficient reason” for something happening no matter how tragic—if Columbus didn’t leave generations of people with fatal syphilis, we wouldn’t have chocolate or cochineal! We can see how Voltaire employs the phrase “sufficient reason” in the earlier description of war where “the bayonet charge provided ‘sufficient reason’ for the death of several thousand.” The same absurd logic is applied to such tragic events as the calamitous Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which Pangloss and Candide witness. Pangloss makes ridiculous attempts to reconcile the event with the idea that this was the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire himself was disgusted that thirty to fifty thousand people died in the Lisbon earthquake, yet there could be some who assessed the disaster as a “good” thing. It’s this indifferent and callous optimism that Voltaire attacks in his book, and quite brilliantly. Voltaire essentially subjects Candide to as many horrors as possible to see if he ever gives up the optimism that he’s inherited from his tutor Pangloss. The book can then be recast not only as a quest to regain Cunégonde, but also a journey to discover if Pangloss’s theories are in fact true.
If this characterization of Leibniz’s theodicy seems unfair, it’s because it is. Leibniz’s philosophy on optimism is far more complex than Voltaire lets on. Rather, as Butts explains, Voltaire is mocking the interpretations of Leibniz’s ideas that went too far.
Though he ridiculed Leibniz’s terminology . . . he attacked, not Leibniz’s philosophy, but its popular perversions.
And in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
That said, it should be noted that there is considerable scholarly controversy as to whether Voltaire's target in Candide is indeed Leibniz: it has been claimed, for example, that the “optimism” lampooned in Candide is closer to that of [Alexander] Pope; on the general reception of Leibniz in France.2
El Dorado v. Candide’s Garden
One rare point of respite and fortune for Candide is when he ends up in the mythical city of El Dorado. The city is a utopia where everything is in such abundance that everything is quite nearly worthless. For example, the precious metals so deemed as “precious” by regular civilization are common in El Dorado to the point that they’re discarded on the ground after schoolchildren use them as marbles to play with.
Candide ultimately chooses to leave in continuation of his pursuit of Cunégonde, and is immediately beset by the same troubles that had plagued him before. He finally achieves the other point of respite at the conclusion of the book when Candide and the band of friends he has accumulated settle down in Turkey to cultivate a humble garden. He has come to the realization that this is the only way to largely avoid the ills of the world while also being fulfilled.
After reading, I was confused about the purpose El Dorado serves in the book. Typically, a book will give its reader a sense of resolution by making it clear upon conclusion that the protagonist has ended up where they’re meant to be, or in the only place they can be. All other options are untenable and create the conflict that drives a story to its necessary conclusion. In contrast, El Dorado was not untenable at all—in fact it was the opposite. El Dorado was so perfect as to lack any reason why someone should not want to stay there forever. Indeed, it seemed like Candide came quite close to staying himself. It’s quite clear that by concluding the book the way he did, Voltaire meant to send the message that the ideal life was the meek gardening that Candide takes up in Turkey. Yet, if that is to be the message, why would Voltaire leave something like El Dorado in the book, which is obviously superior to Candide’s little garden in every single way? Why shouldn’t or couldn’t Candide just stay in El Dorado?
One possibility is that Voltaire’s descriptions of El Dorado are almost too good, so overly grandiose as to border on satire. If it is satirical, and hence a negative take on utopic fantasies, there’s also this perspective from a random Twitter user to consider:
This Twitter interpretation suggests that the small garden in Turkey is also satire. Now I’m not actually sure why this Twitter user thinks that. Perhaps, a consistent reading of the entire book as satire necessarily includes the ending as well. If both El Dorado and Candide’s little garden are satire, then are is there no place in the world that Voltaire finds worthy of sober appreciation? Or does Voltaire actually have a message for readers on which between El Dorado and the garden in Turkey is preferable? I don’t actually think it’s all satire, and even if it is, satire can merit analysis. The question I want to answer is which of El Dorado or Candide’s little garden does Voltaire want readers to normatively prefer? I spent several days agonizing over this question, and I now have an answer based on some research I conducted way too seriously.
A paper called “The Eldorado Episode in Candide” by William Bottiglia deals with this question. At the outset, Bottiglia points out that all the characteristics of Doradan society are ones that Voltaire promoted throughout his life. For example, El Dorado’s philosopher-king is Voltaire’s sketch of his own partiality towards a beneficent monarchy. That settles the question of whether El Dorado’s occurrence in the book is merely a meaningless occasion of satire: it’s not. The problem now remains of how to earnestly consider El Dorado alongside Candide’s garden, and also what role the city plays in this story.
The first thing that Candide sees upon entering El Dorado are the cultivated fields. Voltaire writes:
The farmer and the landscape gardener had been equally busy in this countryside
This follows a larger gardening motif throughout the book: there’s one in the Jesuit colony when Candide lands in South America; a Venetian senator’s estate’; the Turkish man’s plot of land who inspires Candide to make his own garden; and Candide.
Just like Candide’s garden, the garden of El Dorado serves the purpose of sustenance and fulfillment through cultivation. Sustenance seems like a contradiction for a civilization that has so much in abundance. In fact, critiques of the utopic nature (or the lack thereof) of El Dorado have made the argument that Candide left precisely because of the listlessness and dissatisfaction generated in the absence of the necessity for labor. I too had originally considered this line of thinking, which would actually make El Dorado inferior to Candide’s garden due to the city’s lack of “opportunity for amelioration or activity.” Bottiglia counters by pointing out that the seemingly perfect appearance of the city requires maintenance.
If [Voltaire’s] ideal society inevitably lacks the challenge of amelioration, it does provide the challenge of maintenance in perpetuity. Its inhabitants obviously can have nothing to pray for, but they do have everything to work for, to live for.
The cultivation of Candide’s garden resembles the challenge of maintenance in El Dorado in that both provide gratification and purpose. This analysis puts the two gardens in conversation with each other rather than in opposition. My original mistake in asking the question about El Dorado’s role in the story was thinking about the city and Candide’s garden as juxtaposed, as if both were placed in mutual exclusivity before Candide (and the reader) to choose between.
The fact that he then chose the small garden in Turkey rather than the wondrous civilization of El Dorado was baffling to me. Bottiglia’s paper helped me reach the answer to the dilemma of which Voltaire thinks is better: El Dorado and Candide’s garden are actually just both different versions of the same ideal.
Candide is not being pulled to choose between two sides, but being pulled toward one side that has both El Dorado and Candide’s garden in it—Candide’s garden is merely an imperfect but attainable version of the ideal in El Dorado. The garden in Turkey is simply the furthest down the path towards the ideal of El Dorado that man can go.
Finally, there is the relationship between Eldorado and Candide’s garden. The former offers a dream of perfection, a philosophic ideal for human aspiration. The latter depicts the optimum present reality, which calls for work illumined by a sense of social purpose.
But if El Dorado is the unachievable, paradisiacal ultimate that humans can only strive for by cultivating their own garden, then why did Candide ever choose to leave when he had access to it? To answer this next question, I co-opted Bottiglia’s analysis into my own understanding of Christian theology.
The Garden of Eden
There is no doubt that the Garden of Eden framework has already been applied to Candide. The Wikipedia page for the book says:
The first location commonly identified as a garden is the castle of the Baron, from which Candide and Cunégonde are evicted much in the same fashion as Adam and Eve are evicted from the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis . . . The third most prominent "garden" is El Dorado, which may be a false Eden.3
However, I believe that they have applied the Garden of Eden framework incorrectly, or perhaps mischaracterized El Dorado as a “false Eden” when it in fact represents the true Eden of the story.
Firstly, the castle of the Baron in Westphalia from which Candide starts in the beginning of the book does not even actually feature a garden or any explicit mentions of cultivation. It’s also nowhere close to being perfect or very good relative to some of the places Candide eventually encounters, and there’s no reason to consider it the “true” Eden. Secondly, there is nothing false about El Dorado besides the fact that it does assume quite a mythical air. Nothing in the city is negative or bad in any way that might suggest that it isn’t at least the closest thing to the Garden of Eden that appears in the book.
Bottiglia argues that by nature of El Dorado’s perfection and Candide’s imperfection, it is actually impossible for Candide to live in El Dorado.
Candide must leave Eldorado because it is a myth, a dream, and, as such, unreal. Imperfect man cannot successfully inhale the rarified air of the heights of perfection.
Candide is incapable of being in El Dorado the way humans can’t breathe in space. His reasons for leaving are his promise to be with Cunégonde and the fact that the jewels he has now obtained in El Dorado will give him such superiority and monetary wealth so as to conquer all evils. This type of thinking represents Candide’s flawed, and sinful mind. He’s unable to escape the flawed paradigm of the imperfect world where money has value, superiority and power are desired, and love is based on infatuation. In El Dorado, money literally doesn’t exist, but Candide possesses no framework to comprehend the value of that. In El Dorado, everyone is a priest, but again Candide can’t process that with his tainted perspective on power.
If we stay here, we shall be no different from anybody else; but if we go back to the old world with a mere twelve sheep laden with Eldorado stones, we shall be richer than all the kings of Europe put together. We shall have nothing to fear of Inquisitors, and we shall easily rescue Lady Cunégonde.
Candide is under the impression that life after El Dorado can only be the same or greater than that within the city, because he assumes that riches will make him superior to everyone else around him, whereas in El Dorado he can only be an equal to others. He assumes that the lack of evils in El Dorado can be replicated outside by simply buying his way out of any discomfort. The stones will provide Candide the riches and power that are unobtainable within El Dorado, because El Dorado is so overflowing with wealth that wealth is worthless.
The incompatible nature of the perfection of El Dorado and the imperfection of the outside world is further reinforced by El Dorado’s isolation. It is meant to be physically impossible to access, and Candide along with his buddy Cacambo are actually unique visitors. Moreover, the king’s subjects have all sworn to never leave. Their isolation feels necessary because by witnessing such faulty things as money and power, the Doradans would probably suffer the same fate as Candide. Their eyes would suddenly and irreversibly realize the “value” of a precious jewel, and they too would cart off El Dorado’s riches to exchange for superiority in the flawed, sinful world outside their borders. The Doradans cannot risk becoming Candide, who like Adam and Eve after taking the bite of the apple, now know what “good” and “evil” are. As Bottiglia puts it:
[Voltaire] warns the reader that Candide and Cacambo lack the philosophic maturity to appreciate Eldorado at its real worth, and that their reasons for leaving it are wrong.
Almost immediately after exiting El Dorado, Candide loses the majority of his wealth through unluckiness at the hands of nobody but nature, and then subsequently loses almost all of the remainder to the same wickedness he thought he could purchase his way out of—he is cheated, swindled, and stolen of his money. By the time he has finally reunited with Cunégonde, who is now haggardly and ugly, Candide has nothing. The pursuits and temptations that led him to depart El Dorado have all turned up futile, and the evils he thought he could overcome by sheer money and power are still unconquered.
Candide had a chance, almost by divine serendipity, to be in the Garden of Eden. Ultimately, like Adam and Eve he had to leave. Where Adam and Eve were banished, Voltaire makes it seem as if Candide made the choice, but really Candide’s decisions were inevitable. The knowledge of good and evil is manifest in Candide by the knowledge that the gemstones represent exploitable wealth, something Doradans aren’t aware of in their pre-bite-of-the-apple state. This original sin that taints Candide, and El Dorado being perfect as it is, means that Candide simply cannot be or exist in El Dorado the way like poles of a magnet repel. There’s a flaming sword to keep the sinful out of the Garden of Eden.
Voltaire is making a point about humanity’s condition of poverty before the offerings of God. Everyday we make decisions that choose pitifully human aims, and we seem to enjoy it. We might not admit it, but infatuated love, money, and power do make us feel good. Yet Voltaire shows us how dumb we all are for fawning over these things—just look at the glory of El Dorado!
We might fault Voltaire or even God for making us feel shame about the lowness of our pursuits before an impossible alternative. But had God dropped us in our present condition into the Garden of Eden with the awareness that outside is sin and inside is El Dorado, we’d still choose to leave on our own accord. We are simply helpless in our sin. Voltaire is understanding, though. Through Candide’s garden at the end, Voltaire offers us a blueprint for how to continue. Cultivating a garden is a worthy undertaking. It doesn’t offer the treasures of El Dorado, but it provides enough to live comfortably. That’s enough to put it on nearly equal terms with El Dorado, where gold and silver are useless anyways such that life there is also just about living comfortably. Candide’s futile quest over whether Pangloss’s theories on “the best of all worlds” was correct or not can finally be put to rest. Philosophic labors such as that become obsolete—diligent gardening can occupy both the hands and the mind instead. Big theoretical questions can lead people all over the world to chase the answers that apparently hold the magical solution to fulfillment in life, only to end up in discovering it in steady labor like gardening.
This, according to Voltaire, is how we can recreate our own imperfect version of the perfect Garden of Eden. Bottiglia writes:
By returning from utopia and establishing himself in the garden, Candide comes to understand what his ideal should be, how it differs from the actual, and how its perfections may at least be approached by imperfect man in this imperfect world.4
Bottiglia makes no mentions of God or Eden anywhere in his paper, and the Christian analysis has been entirely mine. Whether or not Voltaire actually thought about God when writing this, we might never know, but Candide’s oddly Christian message certainly appears to be one worthy of pursuing.
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