The Ugly Truth

This weekend I (“had the pleasure of” terrible movie don't ever watch it) watched The Ugly Truth a chick-flick based around love and lust. What astonished me was the resemblance it had with Candide, it had nothing to do with the topic or how it was written. But instead both the movie and the book had similar approach over a controversial topic. This is the last blog I will write about Candide, not only because the book is over but because Voltaire has finally expressed his true reason towards writing this book. As in the movie, it runs all the time satirically mocking love through the eyes of a player how believes life if ever lived with love will suck, therefore promotes lust and it being the only way of living a happy life. When at the end of the movie he ends up falling in love with the other main character, I know how unexpected.

Candide has its similarities with the movie. Throughout the book, before the last page, there is only one part in the book in which Candide dares to defy his “all is for the best” life motto. But it was not for long as he corrects himself before the sentence is even over.

“What would Professor Pangloss say if he had seen how unsophisticated nature behaves? No doubt all is for the best, but I must say it is very cruel to have lost Lady Conégonde and to be skewered by the Oreillons.” (PG.71)

If a satire is written correctly there is no need to reveal your real point when writing. When finishing the novel there is no explaining to do, just reflection. The book has unraveled. Voltaire has mocked the world, its religion, its people all along you finally come to his conclusion:

“There is a chain of events in this best of all worlds…” “That’s true enough,” said Candide; “but we must go and work in the garden.” (PG. 144)

The ‘chain of events’ that happen in your life are suited for the best, and they fall into that order for a reason. Yet those are random and uncontrollable. The only way to make this your life and live it the fullest is by ‘working your garden’. Toiling through the hard situations, Voltaire emphasizes lastly that nature is not enough, nature affects everybody equally. If you ever want to succeed you need to risk it, to finally get the biscuit.

Might I add the book was in its self an odyssey. At the beginning it was hard to comprehend, the titles of each chapter were spoilers of what was to come and what through me off the most was the lame and monotone storyline. After comprehending satire, it becomes interesting and funny, to see once perspective of the beautiful life brought down by one guy and his clumsy characters in a book. Lastly when you reach the end you have changed your approach towards the book so many times, you never expect that one last change, that moral lesson. Learning something from those one hundred and some pages of mockery.

Hey Mom!

I got caught today laughing with or towards Candide, I’m still not sure which, but my mom thinks I’m crazy to be laughing upon a book written by Voltaire a philosopher-politician from the French Revolution.

Sitting down and having to explain to her how it is all written with satire, she still does not believe me. I understand then it is hard to explain, how can I tell her the author is mocking everything in the book, even the complete essence of it by starting it with a double inner cover with different authors. That nothing in the book is said literally, everything has a hidden meaning behind it, yet there is a story line meant to make sense.

I told her she should read some fragments of it, so she proceeded to do so. She found the following two the funniest from the chapter she read:

“Candide instantly drew his own and plunged it up to the hilt in the Baron’s stomach, but as he withdrew the dripping blade he began to weep and cried: ‘O God! What have I done! I have killed my old master, my friend, and my brother in law! I am the best-tempered man there ever was, yet I have killed three men, and two of them were priests” (PG.67)

She laughed, how ironical is it the he calls himself the best-tempered man and then proceeds to exaggerate that he has only killed three men, plus two of them were part of the ‘horrific’ sects: religion.

“They found two naked girls who were tripping along the edge of the meadow, while two monkeys followed them nibbling their buttocks. Candide’s heart was touched by the sight.” (PG.69)

Is Voltaire even taking this book seriously? It is pure absurdity, she said.

She finally got my point! The whole book is absurd the story itself has no meaning, the real meaning lies within the satire. What Voltaire mocks about society and everything he disagrees about is expressed in an entertaining way through the book.

My job here is done.

Communism? Quite absurd.

“Paraguay…the reverend fathers own the whole lot, and the people own nothing: that’s what they call a masterpiece of reason and justice.” (PG.62)

Paraguay, governed through communism, reined by Jesuits? Quite absurd.

Plus, it runs completely against Voltaire’s ideas of life. Being a revolutionary figure during the French revolution he sought to achieve civil liberties: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, free trade and, the most important that has been mocked throughout the novel, separation of state and church. The Paraguayans demonstrated a dystopian world through Voltaire’s eyes. Apart from the nation’s people being silenced and denied their rights, they were governed by the only institution many insisted should be separate from the state due to its incredible power: the Church.

“A sergeant told them they should wait; the Colonel could not speak to them, he said, because his reverence, the Father Provincial, did not allow any Spaniard to open his mouth except in his presence, nor to stay more than three hours in the country.” (PG.63)

It seems to me that Paraguay perceived Spain at that time as many third world countries felt about the United States during the imperial era. They were oppressed by the USA’s power, exploited by a exponentially growing nation who they could not fight back against. Much like North Korea, now days, with the world developing around them they insist on the traditional. They feel, like the Jesuits in Candide that the only way to save their country from any impurities is keeping all knowledge from the outside world from their population. And as expressed in the book a huge gap between the Leaders and their followers is present.

“An excellent dinner was served on gold plates, and while the Paraguayans ate their maze on wooden dishes in the open field in the full blaze of the sun, his reverence the Colonel retired to the shade in his arbour.” (PG.64)

The Golden Rule

The universal rule of reason can be also considered a dogma, principles laid down by an authority as inconvertible. It establishes rules lay down by societies that are governed by reason and it is pretty much absurd to go against them. While reading Voltaire’s Candide I noticed how he constantly mocks the world and its dogmas knowing that you can set as many rules as you want but the world will never be fair, not even for the one that acts rightly. When a mom dies giving birth, nothing is fair. I life was ended when bringing a human to the world to pamper and give love, and a child will have to grow up alone without even braking the universal rule of reason in his entire life.

“I am a sailor and was born in Batavia. I have had to trample on the crucifix four times in various trips I’ve been to Japan. I’m not the man for your Universal Reason” (pg. 34)

The sailor expresses the “perfect” way of seeing life if we asked Voltaire. No life is perfect or better than the other, bad things will happen to everybody and why keep on trying to achieve happiness if every corner you turn a harder challenge or a more devastating story will hit you.

Most humans go by the “treat others the way you want to be treated” the only problem is that life is not that way. Life can be karma but also act as backstabber. It is the only thing that when treated certain way will act bipolar and go either path. The solution is not to worry as Old Woman said: “I have grown old in misery and shame, but I have never forgotten that I am the daughter of the Pope. I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love life.” (pg. 57). Ingenuity is the best medicine to soar the pains.

Fanaticism

“His provisions were exhausted by the time he reached Holland, but as he had heard that everyone in that country was rich and all were Christians.” (pg.26)

Voltaire keeps on mocking optimism worldwide, one extreme demonstration of it is religious fanaticism. People who believe through a superior force the can always have a companion and a force for when times get hard. This time Christians are the victims, they feel so full with God by their side, reaching such a high level of reliability that they will not acknowledge a famishing person just because they are not devoted followers.

“The minister’s looked out of the window at that moment, and seeing a man, who was not sure that the Pope was Antichrist, emptied over his head a pot full of…” (pg. 27)

An Anabaptist is someone that believes baptism should be done with consent and not at the time of birth, Christians detest this thought. Voltaire exemplifies an Anabaptist healing and giving help to Candide, after Christian servers rejected him after defying their words. Voltaire even mocks the prestigious ceremony of the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine:

“At this Candide quickly led him to the Anabaptist’s stable, where he made him eat some bread, and as soon as he revived, said to him.”

The bread is a special moment in mass were the followers are given a moment to revive the Last Meal, and therefore being able to communicate with God. In this case bread is just a simple element that can only revive a person from starving. It cannot save you from any bad deeds as Catholics interpret it.

Not only ironically talking about religious beliefs and the extents fanaticism can reach, flaws of the church such as adultery are exposed. When Candide reencounters with his beloved teacher Pangloss he is now infected with an STD transmitted by a girl who was now dead. The problem was not that but that she had gotten the ‘present’ from a Franciscan.

“She was infected, and now perhaps she is dead. Paquette was given this present by a learned Franciscan who had traced it back to its source, a Jesuit.”