The tale follows a young man called Candide on a variety of adventures around the world, including a stop in an utopian Eldorado. As he learns about the world and the people in it, he is educated and enlightened about what really matters in life. The tale was placed on the list of banned books by the Vatican in 1762 and Voltaire kept no manuscript copies or mentions of the story in his journal and letters so that he could avoid arrest. I was expecting a scandalous tale.

Of course what was scandalous in the past isn’t always so in the present. But I’m not surprised he rattled a few cages as the increasing desperate straits of Candide’s fall from life in a castle to slavery, conscription, shipwreck etc illustrate a clear satire on philosophical systems in general, and optimism in particular. Having read Jean Jacques Rosseau (an enemy of Voltaire’s) elsewhere on the 501 list I can see that the 1700s French took their philosophical arguments very seriously indeed. His criticisms of various clergymen in the story won’t have made him popular in the Vatican and his criticism of the aristocracy won’t have won him any friends either.

Although this book is 250 years old, it still has plenty to say that applies to modern life and should be on the must-read-list of any student of philosophy. As for the rest of us, well it’s short and rather funny in places.  I’m happy to recommend it as an entertaining and though-provoking read.

(read December 2012)

From the off Candide is a very elaborate story, and Candide’s journey in search of his beloved Cunégonde spans many years and many countries. Candide experiences similar misfortunes, that in Voltaire’s mind all lead to the conclusion that in fact everything is not for the best, and misdeeds are not in fact the work of god but the work of human nature which includes greed, spite and jealousy. Throughout the satire, hopes are built up and almost instantaneously knocked down which reinforces Voltaire’s own doctrines about life and faith in nonsensical doctrines. In many ways Candide is the gold standard of pre-secularism and does not disclose a particular religion but more a movement of faith towards illogical philosophies of the time, which in my eyes is extremely interesting.

Whatever you’re interpretation of Voltaire’s satirical novel, it remains a classic of The Enlightenment. Its words are not dated as you would expect from such an aged novel, and it’s notions although dated remain relevant to religious philosophies that still exist. Voltaire’s storytelling in his most celebrated work is fluid, accessible and indeed witty at points and for me it remains a book that challenges the ideals of centuries in way that keeps one captivated and amused. Its absurdity and constant whispers in the reader’s ear from Voltaire through Candide’s doubts in his philosophy are the crux for me in creating a fantastic satirical tale, reactionary to the prominent philosophies of the time. i

This iPad app involves three complementary sections:

The Book:

To provide an optimal reading experience, the app can simultaneously display the text and the BnF’s manuscript. Denis Podalydès’s voice allows the reader to hear a lively and personable interpretation of Candide by a major actor. With one touch, the reader can make use of the enhanced reading mode which facilitates access to the work: definitions, variants of the critical edition as established by the Voltaire Foundation, character sheets, place, concepts, illustrations of the text by 18th century engravers but also by Paul Klee, etc.

The World:

A map allows the reader to chart Candide’s journey while providing opportunities to further investigate the text thanks to interviews, a bibliography, and an iconographical library.

Michel Le Bris, Alain Finkielkraut, Martine Reid and Georges Vigarello all shed new light on such themes as women in the 18th century, El Dorado, cultivating one’s garden, and images of the Other.

The Garden:

A collaborative space facilitating discussions on Candide, the garden gives each reader the opportunity to publish a notebook made up of their own comments and their favourite analyses. Each notebook takes the shape of a tree of learning in the garden. A living space in constant evolution, this garden grows according to the reinterpretations produced by the online reader-contributors. This section will be a vital learning tool for schools: teachers will be able to create their own presentations in the garden and invite their students to contribute to them.

Orange and e-books

This project is part of Orange’s ongoing project to support as many players in the book distribution chain as possible during their process of digitization. Accordingly, Orange is developing a series of innovative services such as the platform Read and Go (facilitating the digital reading of magazines, books and graphic novels), and experimenting with narrative projects (Fanfan2…). Orange also launched in 2009 the Orange Prize for Fiction, a literary prize judged by Internet users and chaired by Erik Orsenna. Furthermore, Orange initiated the project MO3T, an open model of e-book distribution, and created a consortium with all key players in a book’s creation: telecom operators, editors, booksellers, IT and technology service providers…

What is at stake for the BnF

The BnF digitally uploads an increasingly large portion of its vast collection. Gallica, its digital library, provides users with nearly 2 million documents, including 381 000 books and more than 500 000 images.

Access to this collection is now facilitated by a particularly ergonomic iPad app.

Through its educational policies and activities, such as its online exhibitions (expositions.bnf.fr) and teaching resources (classes.bnf.fr), the BnF aims to make the cultural heritage it preserves accessible to the largest audience possible.

This project is also aligned with the BnF’s aims, along with the Ministry of Education, to offer digital resources to all secondary school students to help them engage with language, history, history of art, and literature.

The Voltaire Foundation’s point of view

Candide is a timeless and universal text. The Voltaire Foundation is proud to be associated with the creation of this Candide app, designed to make Voltaire’s masterpiece accessible to the widest audience possible.

What is exciting about this new digital edition is that it is free, beautiful, accessible, and in no way inferior to the most erudite of editions. Its starting point is the definitive critical edition of Candide by René Pomeau published by the Voltaire Foundation. The two levels of annotations, ‘discovery’ and ‘research’, solve the limitations of a paper edition by making it a useful tool for both academics and students. Thanks to these two levels, as well as the map of the world charting Candide’s travels, the reader can choose their own way into the text. Just like Candide, the reader is free to wander through this voltairean world and make their own discoveries at their own pace.

“The Classics Club Readathon” is taking place on January 5th, 2013 that is today. It is a 24-hour readathon starting bright & early in the morning on 05th Jan and ending 06th Jan early morning! Feel free to join!

We will be reading for 24 hours during this period, and reading only Classics! Hoping this inspires and helps all the Classics-Lovers to knock a classic or two off your challenge list early in the new year!

To sign up, all you have to do is visit The Classics Club by clicking on the image above and fill up the sign-up form. We look forward to reading with you tomorrow!

Oh! And by the way, I am neck-deep into Candide by Voltaire reading toward the challenge. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde might follow shortly.

Enjoy reading!

- A Book-Lover

]]> http://wanggo.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/the-flower-duet-and-song-to-the-moon/ Thu, 03 Jan 2013 11:26:52 +0000 wanggo http://wanggo.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/the-flower-duet-and-song-to-the-moon/ My Dad is a huge fan of opera. He listens to it while he plays Civilization V on the PC or he’s painting, when he gets to paint. My Dad has influenced my musical tastes for the longest time. I got into folk music because of him; growing up with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, John Denver, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and a whole host of other singers playing in the background when I used to go and play in his room. Later on, when he saw how much I loved to dance, he made me listen to musicals, introducing me to Les Miserables, Candide, Chorus Line, and Chess. When he saw that I had grown a certain liking for it, he got me into the deeper, tougher stuff; he got me listening to Nine from Maury Yeston and the Stephen Sondheim musicals like Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, and Sweeney Todd. When I was much older, he would play the more eclectic stuff like Klaus Nomi, Kate Bush (who later became my favourite singer songwriter of all time), David Knopfler, and David Byrne.

But from his music, I never got into opera. When I got older and saw how moved so many characters in movies were when they watched opera, I thought that I should get into it, and then I asked him what was a good opera for me to start with and I don’t exactly remember which one he gave me to listen to. It might have been Rigolleto. But I’m not sure. I used to help him fix his music library so I became very familiar with the titles but no matter what I tried, I never could get into it.

Deep down inside, I still feel like I’m not cultured enough. Opera is still something I have to be able to sit down to and listen to be able to consider myself as cultured.

From movies and concerts and the like, I have gotten to like certain arias and duets, though. I just can’t listen to the whole thing from start to finish. I don’t have the capacity for it yet.

One particular song that I love is The Flower Duet from Delibes’ Lakme. It’s my favourite, especially after I heard a remix, modern version that was used in a 1980s airline commercial. It was a fabulous commercial, for the 80s, set against a remix of The Flower Duet. When my Dad told me that it was from Lakme, I went to listen to it and fell in love with it. I tried to listen to the whole opera but couldn’t get into it. I still couldn’t. Even until now.

The other day, I was writing and my door was wide open, as it always is, and my Dad had his door open as well, and instead of my usual songs from my iTunes, I decided to go online and play arias and duets from operas on YouTube. I really wanted to listen to Song to the Moon from Rusalka by Dvorak.I needed it in particular for a scene I was writing and I had to get into that mode. So I started playing it and then, for the hell of it, just jumped from one aria to another. That afternoon, these beautiful arias just floated through the whole house. It was gorgeous.

As arias, as individual songs, it was gorgeous and it really helped my writing. So much so, I went and downloaded The Humming Chorus from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly off of iTunes because it was so gorgeous.

Maybe I have to grow up just a little bit more before I could start really getting into opera like my Dad does. But five years ago, I wouldn’t even go out of my way to spend a whole afternoon  listening to arias and duets from operas. I’m growing up and my tastes are maturing. It is something to look forward to, really.

I’m happy that it is getting there. How awful it would be just to listen to the same kind of music for the rest of my life. I think it showed a great deal of maturity to have gone ahead and start buying songs that weren’t in English. I bought some CDs and mp3s from musical acts from Iceland and Latin America and France. The world is too large to live in such contained spaces.

I’m growing up. I’m finally growing up.

I’m pleased to say Django was no different. The gruesome bloodbaths I could have probably done without, but what kind of Tarantino movie would it be if I wasn’t seriously considering puking up my chewy sprees during 3/4th of the scenes? My childish intolerance for blood aside, the plot was definitely above average. Through the subtleties of the black-power references (Django’s “mentor”, and ultimately the man who gives Django his first taste of freedom is named ‘Dr. King’) and Jamie Foxx and his portrayal of a lovestruck “black hercules” gives this movie a bit of a different feel than other “historical” accounts of slavery (thinking “Amastad” here). Finally, an empowered black character who is even a slave.

The most fascinating aspect to this movie for me was the seamless parallels between the plot of Django and the philosophy behind Voltaire’s “Candide”. Ironically so, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a man “Calvin Candie”, a rich plantation owner with a creepy crush on his sister (?). Candie seems like your average happy slaveowner, until he does some (for lack of a better phrase) fucked up shit which makes you feel differently. He has a creepy butler, whom he tenderly refers to as his “house nigger” and who was basically his manny and also may or may not have had a gay crush on Candie. Homoerotic tendencies of Quentin Tarantino aside (you’re all thinking it) if you’ve ever read Candide you know where I’m taking this.

Candie says something along the lines of, “one might ask, why don’t [the slaves] kill [their masters]?” In which he has a grossly inadequate pseudo-science answer to that I will leave for another day. The question stuck with me though, why was it that the slaves never carried out successful uprisings against their masters? Thinking back to Voltaire’s magnum opus and the main character, Candide. A sheltered pessimist and his optimistic mentor, Panglass, and the idea that “all is right” when really in all reality EVERYTHING BAD THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN TO THESE POOR MF CAN… & DID.  Perhaps the slaves carried the same Leibniz optimism, that their reality was  really the “best of all possible worlds”. Did they ever imagine a day they would all be free & equal like our forefathers had envisioned? Would they be able to fathom a world where African Americans were not only political figures but community leaders & activists? What would their stance on Condoleeza Rice be?

All jokes aside I really was fascinated by this movie in its entirety. As the daughter of your average, run-of-the-mill, radical right-wing conservative Southern Mississippi white man, I find that questions pertaining to family history are all answered in the same extremely vague and unfamiliar manner. Often times brushed under the rug or a “save it for so-and-so” a days.. in all honesty I would love to time travel back to the town my Dad was born and raised in circa 1852.

I wonder what they used instead of sea-doo’s.

Anyways, Django. You had my curiousity, and then you had my attention. For the whole two hours and fourty-five minutes : )

First things first: Candide is funny. Funnier than I expected, and very short, making it a good read for your commute (unless you drive or bike to work). It’s a satire written in the picaresque style, with Candide wandering from place to place in a sort of episodic fashion. Oh, and it’s violent – misfortunes I can’t imagine befall characters at every turn.

Pangloss*, Candide’s mentor, guides him with the philosophy that they ”live in the best of all possible worlds” where all things happen in the best possible way, because nothing better could have been possible. This simplistic optimism is satirized throughout the story as Candide’s adherence to his mentor’s philosophy is tested time and time again, in an exaggerated, whirlwind fashion. The idea that every person regards himself as the unhappiest person to live leads many characters to recount their long and tragic lives. Candide and everyone in his life face death time and time again, and happen to find each other again even across the oceans and years that separate them. At one point there’s a ridiculous scene in which Candide reunites with Pangloss despite having watched him hanged earlier in the story. Life was much more brutish in the 1700s. It’s certain that by the end Candide’s philosophy on life is changed, no longer content to accept that all is for the best.

* Fun side note: “pangloss” is a word listed in the dictionary and defined as “a person who views a situation with unwarranted optimism.”

Seasons greetings and welcome, to the Pure Mood Podcast episode 06! Erik and Zane discuss a variety of trivial topics sure to bore you to tears. This is the kind of self deprecating intro you could only get at the Pure Mood!

- Zane gives a shot out to local hot spot BURGER HEAVEN, while Erik describes his experience eating Hobbit food at Denny’s.

-Zane rewatches the entire X-MEN EVOLUTION series, and finds it to be surprisingly mature, dense and character focused. So, basically everything the ’90′s X-MEN: TAS wasn’t.

-Jonathon Hickman answered fans’ AVENGERS questions, and here’s what we thought about them!

-THE MAN OF STEEL trailer is here…do Erik and Zane see it as pretentious navel-gazing, or a sincere attempt at using the superhero genre to tell stories in an artistic sense?

-Erik’s turned the Pure Mood HQ into a Christmas Bonanza! He raves about the Polyphonic Spree’s HOLIDAYDREAM and Tracey Thorn’s TINSEL AND LIGHTS. And what’s at the top of The Pure Mood Christmas Wish list?

BUTTON MASHING

Zane finally gets to play the first MASS EFFECT as it comes to PS3. He reveals his thoughts on the first entry in the series, how it’s affected his view of the entire three-part story, and how playing through the game simultaneously with two separate characters turns the game into an interesting look at how subjective and malleable reality can be.

THE DEAD PENGUIN CLUB

In our literary supplement, Erik attempts to offer an uneducated view on a literary work in his continuing reviews of the Penguin Classics series, this time taking a look at Voltaire’s CANDIDE.

THE PURE MOOD MAIL BAG

And while digging through our mail bag, Erik and Zane answer reader Kris Amsel’s intelligent, well-informed comments and thoughts on Greg Pak’s use of the character Kidcrawler in X-TREME X-MEN. Remember, if you’d like to hear your question/comment read on the show, just e-mail us at thepuremood [at] gmail [dot] com or leave a comment on the site! That’s it for this week’s show! We’ll see you on Tuesday with THE PURE MOOD PULL LIST #29, and next week on Saturday for THE PURE MOOD PODCAST #7!

“Je sais aussi,” dit Candide, “qu’il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

“That is well said,” replied Candide, “but we must cultivate our garden.”

– Voltaire, Candide, ou l’Optimisme (Candide: Or, Optimism)

Candide is one of my favorite books of all time, and I just realized that the main characters, after suffering an endless array of ridiculous misfortunes, end up in the Ottoman Empire at the end of the novella. They seek out the help of a renowned, wise dervish who advises the philosopher Pangloss to give up his Leibnitzian quest to prove that this world is “the best of all possible worlds.” (Those Sufi gurus are quite useful.) Later it’s a Turkish farmer and his family who advise the ragtag group to follow a simple life devoted to the development of their individual talents and ultimately inspires Candide to “cultivate their garden.”

It tickles me to realize that Turkey plays a pivotal role in my favorite philosophical novel, although it’s really not all that significant–in the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire was simply the closest non-European destination and thus the logical endpoint for a group of miserable exiles–and then of course we can’t make the historical mistake of equating the Turkish Republic with the Ottoman Empire.

Still, I like the idea that Candide, Cunegunde, Pangloss, and their whole group are, like me, somewhere not far outside of Istanbul, trying to cultivate their gardens.

Photo: Josef Breitenbach “Illuminated Tree” via Crashingly Beautiful

[Candide:] “You must be possessed of the devil.

[Martin, the disillusioned scholar and Manichean:] He’s mixed up with so many things of this world that he may be in me as well as elsewhere; but I assure you, as I survey this globe, or globule, I think that God has abandoned it to some evil spirit—all of it except Eldorado. I have scarcely seen one town which did not want to destroy its neighboring town, no family which did not want to exterminate some other family. Everywhere the weak loathe the powerful, before whom they cringe, and the powerful treat them like brute cattle, to be sold for their meat and fleece. A million regimented assassins roam Europe from one end to the other, plying the trades of murder and robbery in an organized way for a living, because there is no more honest form of work for them; and in the cities which seem to enjoy peace and where the arts are flourishing, men are devoured by more envy, cares, and anxieties than a whole town experiences when it’s under siege. Private griefs are worse even than public trials. In a word, I have seen so much and suffered so much, that I am a Manichee.

[Candide:] Still there is some good.

[Martin:] That may be but I don’t know it.

(The late Robert M. Adams, who taught me expository writing at Cornell long ago, is the editor of this edition of Candide, and in his concluding essay, questions Puritan attitudes toward “work.” And yet, Voltaire was a great favorite in the Soviet Union.) Adams is devastating on the subject of Candide’s choice of the garden: “He has never really been with us, and now he is going back where he came from, to some place outside Europe, outside history, outside people, to a cold and lonely garden where the vegetable he cultivates most assiduously will be his own indifference, his own self-sufficiency. He was, is, and always will be, an outsider….” (p.173, 1966 edition. But see Georg Brandes’s two vol. biography of Voltaire, II, p. 145: To cultivate one’s garden signifies “…work [that] keeps them free of three great evils: ennui, sin, and poverty”…it is the consolation he holds out to the human race”. Nobody read Brandes any more (though Gay did), but Peter Gay sees Candide’s garden as all of Europe, and Voltaire as a radical activist.)

It is instructive to see how each of us responds to this mass trauma in Newtown, Connecticut, so far away for most of us. We know almost nothing about Adam Lanza and his family dynamics, or even the details of the massacre, but we do know (or don’t know) about our own psyches. How we defend ourselves against such a horrible event is a way to get out of the inner darkness how each of us is put together. I will be watching myself, and hope others will try be self-reflective too.

In the comments that follow, I see each type of response as a defense against grief, seeking some soothing explanation or tactic that will explain what no one yet knows. I would suggest that all the comments, whether they come from Left or Right, tell us more about how we defend ourselves against our own often repressed rage and fears of loss of control than they tell us about Adam Lanza and the so-called ‘tragedy’ at Newtown, Connecticut.

I started with Voltaire’s controversial comment (speaking through Martin) on the problem of evil, a preoccupation that runs through the fiction of Herman Melville, who was well aware of Voltaire as a great infidel. (See http://clarespark.com/2010/06/10/herman-melville-dead-white-male/. Melville invokes Voltaire in his annotations to Book 9 of Paradise Lost  comparing Milton with Voltaire as an “Infidel”.*  These annotations were read aloud by me on Pacifica Radio in 1990, but not published by scholars until years later, and then later detoxified by moderate men and women. It is notable that Lillian Hellman’s orignal play of Candide was watered down in later productions of the Bernstein musical.

Adam Lanza (20)

Lillian Hellman

What follows are various conservative diagnoses and advice regarding the ‘tragedy’** at Sandy Hook:

Bill O’Reilly: inexplicable “evil” [and he is expressing learned helplessness: nothing can be done (same as “the poor will always be with us”)]. Same with Hannity. Evil is the devil. A forensic psychologist agrees with Bill. Bill puts on camera a third grader Lebinski and her mother: questions her mother in front of the dazed child. Saturday: Monica Crowley: massacres not preventable [can’t imagine preventable measures and psychiatric interventions] Dr. Keith Ablow is an outlier on Fox: believes that the mental health system has broken down. Geraldo hates this kind of talk.

Family therapist/clinical psychologist; the community is gathering to start the process of healing. Various clerics: the children are angels now and are safe.

Second Amendment male, cited on FB: Obama had faked his tears to start the process of disarming the people.

[Added, 12-17-12: Bernie Goldberg criticizes Right wing for explaining massacre as absence of God in the classroom and abortion. O'Reilly brags that his was the best coverage on Cable (Friday) ignoring that he was intrusive in showing victims and a parent. He is also convinced that Lanza wasn't a loon.]

Moderates, liberals and left-wing radical diagnostics follow:

The allover liberal explanation has three parts: 1.the shooter and his family; 2.poor security/wide availability of guns; 3. a culture of pervasive violence. All reiterated on Fox News Sunday.

Larry Mantle on NPR radio KPPC, Los  Angeles, interviewed a traumatized teacher and pushed her to divulge her feelings. Later some of her distraught words are repeated on NPR, All Things Considered.

Mental health professionals and other liberals: gun control. (i.e., regulate) (12-15) Dr. Alvin Poussaint from Harvard: a rare event, but gun control, conflict-resolution study should be supported.

Charles Krauthammer (12-14): he killed his mother and those attached to her. [He did not know that she was a volunteer teacher and that his brother claimed he might be autistic or suffer from some unstated learning disorder.]

Lefty on FB: Chicago is worse than this, and no one cares. Rich people get more sympathy and coverage. Lefty (cont.) OR Reagan started this by attacking warehousing of crazies (it was actually Carter’s idea, said one of my FB friends).

Dr. Alan Lipman (mental health professional) all signs were there that he could have had psychotic break into paranoid delusions. The aim is prevention and treatment. (Fox guest 8:20 am Saturday) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Lipman. Founded a Center for the Study of Violence at Georgetown. Followed by Robert Stone, who diagnoses autism and lack of empathy.

Centrist child of divorce: incomprehensible and doesn’t know how he will explain it to his children.

Wall Street Journal editorial: a crushing event: let our emotions run pending further revelations.

*From Hunting Captain Ahab:  [To Mitford’s comment on Milton’s religious wanderings (xcix):] He who thinks for himself never can remain of the same mind.  I doubt not that darker doubts crossed Milton’s soul, than ever disturbed Voltair [sic].  And he was more of what is called an Infidel.

[To Satan’s seduction of Eve, Book IX, Melville double scored: “And life more perfect have attained than fate/ Meant me, by venturing higher than my lot.”(689-690) A partially erased note follows “Why then was this forbid? Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,/ His worshippers?”(also double scored, 703-705):]  This is one of the many profound atheistical hits of Milton. A greater than Lucretius, since he always teaches under a masque, and makes the Devil himself a Teacher & Messiah.  [Leyda marked the word “Fate” with an arrow].

[To Book X (5-11): “...for what can scape the eye/ Of God all-seeing, or deceive his heart/ Omniscient? who, in all things wise and just,/ Hindered not Satan to attempt the mind/ Of man, with strength entire, and free will armed,/ Complete to have discovered and repulsed/ Whatever wiles of foe or seeming friend.”]  The Fall of Adam did not so much prove him weak, as that God had made him so.  From all that is gatherable from Milton’s theology, the Son was created.  Now had the Son been planted in the Garden (instead of Adam) he would have withstood the temptation;–why then he and not Adam?  Because of his created superiority to Adam. [Leyda writes] “M adds, later: Sophomoricus”[1]

[Book X, (41-43): “...man should be seduced/ And flattered out of all, believing lies/ Against his maker...] All Milton’s strength & rhetoric suffice not to satisfy concerning this matter–free will.  Doubtless, he must have felt it himself: & looked upon it as the one great unavoidable flaw in his work.  But, indeed, God’s alleged omnipotence & foreknowledge, are insuperable bars to his being made an actor in any drama, imagined.[2]

NOTES to Melville’s annotations of Paradise Lost.

Benny’s Mission
by Stanford Pritchard

Recently, I read Benny’s Mission by Stanford Pritchard. This satirical saga carried me away and enthralled me with its story about Benny Wise. So I had to write a review of it:

Benny’s Mission is an American classic–part Candide, part Forrest Gump, part
Huckleberry Finn. Join Benny Wise on his lifetime odyssey as radical political
organizer, revolutionary, longshoreman, cabdriver, fish-packer, blood donor,
get-rich-quick artist, fighter pilot, speechwriter, warmonger, reporter, city
council member, and mayoral candidate. Follow him as he stirs old people into
angry purpose—and a belief in eternal life on earth—and probes the injustices
of life. A brilliant satire of the moral, political, and social philosophies of
our age, with meat and humor for us all, and some echoes from Cologne No. 10 For Men.  —R.M.

How about lets return to British Literature with the 20th century transcendentalist/stream of consciousness writing of Virginia Wolf and her ground breaking novel Mrs. Dalloway for book XXI.

With a mug like this I must say Voltaire had to be a pimp back in his time!

(2.) ”I DO NOT APPROVE OF YOUR VIEWS, BUT, I WILL DEFEND TILL DEATH, YOUR RIGHT TO SAY IT !”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Happy Birthday,VOLTAIRE,The Great French Writer-cum-Philosopher Of The 18th-Cent., Who Had Contributed Vastly To The Age Of Enlightenment In France!
VOLTAIRE also wrote widely read dramas like IRENE, CANDIDE. .!
He was an atheist,yet,unlike the sense of the term,he used to believe in ‘One Supreme Master’ Whom He Projected As ‘The Architect Of The Universe’ or ‘The Watchmaker Of This World’ ! Such Beliefs Of Voltaire Is Known As ‘DEISM’ !
His Was A Staunch Supporter Of Reason n Rationalism As Opposed To The Notion Of Feelings n Romanticism!This Practise Of Voltaire Is Also Interpreted As ‘Neo-Classicism’ .
VOLTAIRE was also a great supporter of the then emerging English Philosophy, rather The Discourse Of NEWTONIAN PRINCIPLES -as dicovered and examined by The Legendary Mathematician And An All Time Brilliant Mind,SIR ISSAC NEWTON !
VOLTAIRE was chiefly responsible for the spread of ‘NEWTONIAN PRINCIPLES’ inside France!
VOLTAIRE WAS GREATLY IMPRESSED AND INFLUENCED BY THE ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS Like JOHN LOCKE, JONATHAN SWIFT, ALEXANDER POPE, JOHN GAY n the likes.He Had Perfected The Art Of Political Satire During His Three Year Exile In England Resulting In The Exchanges Of Ideas With The Various ‘Who’s Who’ Of The English Literary Circle!
VOLTAIRE always stood for the Freedom of Speech n Expression and had not so good views of democracy,rather if we say , he had negative views regarding democracy,we won’t we wrong as he had described democracy as THE RULE OF MOBS. . .kinda ‘MOBOCRACY’ of today!
His unrestricted views,often critical of the ruling elite n the established way of life, had often put him at war with the elites n the french monarchy and due to such things he had to be imprisoned for a eleven months and a couple of exiles!
VOLTAIRE LIVED IN ENGLAND,CIERY n FERNY INSIDE FRANCE AND FOR A FEW MONTHS IN GENEVA.

As a person he was all for libertinism and sociability and had some affairs with women of high births,one of which was with a mother of three children that lasted for nearly 16yrs!
His Such Hedonistic Plus Libertine Ways Had ,At Times, Earned Him Bitter Criticism !
VOLTAIRE ,TILL DATE, IS CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE GREATEST WITS OF ALL TIME !
A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO VOLTAIRE !
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

MRITYUNJAY JHA
SAMASTIPUR
BIHAR
INDIA.
(91) 9334411390.

http://facebook.com/MJ1982M

http://twitter.com/MJ1982M

Ok, this could be an entire post going on and on and on and on about the awesomeness that is Bjork. But I shall settle for a favorite song:

and a favorite video.

Meanwhile, Voltaire, like all geniuses, is still wise beyond his century. Bernstein’s Candide overture, based on the master’s novel, is fittingly exuberant. And stop over at brainy quote for dozens of thought-provoking statements, including: “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”

It’s also René Magritte’s day. Enjoy the glorious René Magritte website, including wonderful videos. And then revisit Hal Ashby’s Being There, which (though you can’t tell so much from this trailer) is the closest movie to a Magritte painting that I can think of.

Diamonds! Daisies! Snowflakes! Etc. Etc. Happy bday, Marlo Thomas. You were hero to this oddball little girl who dreamed of becoming an actress in NYC. And also having a kite with her own logo on it.

Another woman referred to consistently as a girl: Goldie Hawn.

Two indelibly fine music men close out this stellar birthday celebration. First, this interview with the creaky-voiced Dr. John is pretty awesome….

Then swoon with someone you love to the sexy sounds of Coleman Hawkins.

Today is the birthday of Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire (1694-1778): champion everywhere of freedom: of speech, of religion, of trade, etc etc. Though he wrote history, poetry and drama as well I’ve only read his satirical prose, works like Candide,  Zadig,  Micromegas etc (mostly because that’s what’s translated and available). When I first encountered these writings in my 20s, with their violence, their grotesquerie, and their unflinching attack on dogma and human cruelty,  it gave me courage, a feeling that certain stuff I wanted to attempt was legitimate, that it could be done. But you know what? It never really gets better. If you want to be a crank, pointing out that Aristophanes, Rabelais, Voltaire, Swift and Chaplin all did this before and are now sitting on the classics shelves, doesn’t help with the bad p.r. a bit.

But therein too should Voltaire be our example. Because, exile and persecution notwithstanding, he did what he did, said what he said, and thought what he thought, right up to his deathbed.

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To Whom It May Concern:

I gave my lawyer instructions to release this message after my death. A joke I concocted when I was a kid has gone way, way too far. The most important thing you should know is this: Nothing I have ever written was meant to be taken seriously. You really don’t want to build some kind of philosophy around Atlas Shrugged, okay? I’m sorry if I caused any trouble. I owe you an explanation…

Discover the truth at “I Was Shitting You People – A Message From Ayn Rand.”

[TotH to reader CE]

###

As we try to remain Objective, we might send more genuinely philosophical birthday greetings to Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire; he was born in Paris on this date in 1694.  The Father of the Age of Reason, he produced works in almost every literary form: plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works– more than 2,000 books and pamphlets (and more than 20,000 letters).  A social reformer, Voltaire used satire to criticize the intolerance, religious dogma, and oligopolistic privilege of his day.  The contrite Ms. Rand would surely have appreciated his immortal– and sardonic– advice (in Candide) that each of us should “tend his own garden.”

 source

Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet in Paris in 1694. He was a French Enlightenment writer known for his wit and defence of civil liberties.

~ source ~

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

Let us cultivate our garden.
Candide

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.
Candide

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.

Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.

Voltaire seems to be one of those figures in philosophy who’s name everybody seems to recognize and yet one doubts whether they’ve actually read anything by him. Most seem ready to quote him as saying “a witty saying proves nothing” whenever they’ve been bested with a quote; which is at once incorrect, a self-contradiction and a misquotation.

The writers of the movie The Nines are some of these individuals who know Voltaire’s name but don’t seem to have ever read him. This is evidenced in their having the main character reading a copy of Candide, while another character comments on the the desirability of “the best of all possible worlds” (and then the movie ends with the best of all possible worlds). While it’s true that Candide does revolve around the best of all possible worlds, it’s express goal is to argue that this world is not the best one possible.

Voltaire’s Candide, is as said, written in response to an argument in which his opponent is claiming that this world is the best that it can be and can be no different. The Professor Pangloss takes up the role of Voltaire’s opponent in the book, arguing that “‘It is demonstrable,’ said he, ‘that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end. ‘” Whenever anything bad happens it is his role to respond “it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds.”

The formula of the book is very simple, and it would suffice for the reader to simply read the first few chapters and the last – everything in-between is fluff serving to drive home a repetitive argument. Quite simply the story starts out with Pangloss giving his philosophy and then subsequently everything that can go wrong does, lots of murder rape and bloodshed designed as a counterargument to Pangloss, concluding with the notion that we must “cultivate our garden.”

I can’t say that I have much to say about the book. It’s short and can easily be read in one setting; if nothing else it’s worth picking up just so one can say they’ve read something by Voltaire. Candide’s shortness is rivaled only by it’s simplicity, which makes one wonder why it is even as long as it is.

Memorable Quotes:

-“I was in hopes,” said Pangloss, “that I should reason with you a little about causes and effects, about the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and the pre-established harmony.”

At these words, the Dervish shut the door in their faces.

-“I have only twenty acres,” replied the old man; “I and my children cultivate them; our labour preserves us from three great evils–weariness, vice, and want.”

-”All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”

Specific Criticism

Again, I have little to say about this text. It’s better seen as a philosophical rebuttal than a work of fiction, thus it gets monotonous rather quickly. My only annoyance is that it takes thirty chapters to say what it could have said in three.

Certain novels not only cry out for what we call “critical interpretations” but actually try to help direct them . . .  Books I tend to associate with this INTERPRET-ME phenomenon include stuff like Candide, Witold Gombrowicz’s Cosmos, Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, Sartre’s Nausea, Camus’s The Stranger. These five are works of genius of a particular kind: they shout their genius. Mr. Markson, in Wittgenstein’s Mistress, tends rather to whisper, but his w.o.g.’s no less successful . . . Clearly the book was/is in some way “about” Wittgenstein, given the title. This is one of the ways an INTERPRET-ME fiction clues the critical reader in about what the book’s to be seen as on a tertiary level “about”: the title: Ulysses’s title, its structure as Odyssean/Telemachean map (succeeds); Goldstein’s The Mind-Body Problem (really terrible); Cortázar’s Hopscotch (succeeds exactly to the extent that one ignores the invitation to hop around in it); Burroughs’s Queer and Junkie (fail successfully (?)). 

From David Foster Wallace’s essay “The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress,” which is collected in Both Flesh and Not.