Voltaire’s
Candide was released four years following the 1744 earthquake in
Lisbon Portugal on all saints day. Its subtitle, often translated as
“Optimism” or “All For The Best,” draws a connection to the
idea of philosopher Gotfried Leibniz which states we live in the best
of all possible worlds. This idea becomes a refrain for the titular
character. These words provide a comedic commentary of ironic
proportion juxtaposed to the tragic events that rapidly accumulate to
build the plot. That is how Voltaire used such a subtitle to openly
mock how a notion like Leibniz’s could be maintained in a world
where war and natural disasters like Lisbon's earthquake can take
innocent lives. In American Candide, Mahendra Singh updates
Voltaire's classic, putting Candide, Cunegond, Dr. Pangloss and the
rest of the cast into the modern world where the mantra of “all for
the best” is put into a time where people repeat hashtags and
buzzwords.
American
Candide reminds
us that literature doesn't have to be the kind of high-brow
entertainment constructed of emotionally resonate prose that echo
through university walls. On the contrary, when the concept of lofty
academic ideas comes
up, a character remarks, “at least I don’t have an education to
confuse me and make me soft in the head like you.” This
example of someone contradicting Candide
reminds readers that all Candide can really say are words originally
spoken by his teacher, Dr. Pangloss, before he starts to think for
himself, “it's like I'm plumbing the depths of moron.”
Using characters filled with witticisms and insults, Mahendra Singh
shows how writers can get their points across by tickling the funny
bone of their audience instead of pulling on their heartstrings.
Singh
writes with the
comic
sensibility of a
humorist,
not
a dramatist.
It
was the balance of the original and so once again,
it’s tragedy that the characters are constantly experiencing. But
this allegory is built around comedy and the
tragic events the characters get in to are balanced with absurd
humor. Like the original, the allegorical events and cultural
criticism keep readers laughing while our main character sees how
long he can hold on to his original beliefs while finding himself in
situations that are more and more freighting.
Updating
many of the original plot points and characters, this time around
Candide is a citizen of Freedonia, the “better than best of all
possible nations.” It's this type of change to the original that
make American
Candide an
entertaining allegory of nationalism. Candide is no longer concerned
with how we can claim to live in the best of all possible worlds,
despite meeting people like the old woman who had half her buttocks
removed. Candide is now put into scenarios where he's forced to see
his country through the eyes of people from outside Freedonia. After
seeing
how outsiders view
Freedonia, he
gains a moment of notoriety for his war efforts. Candide
stumbles into
an interview
for
cable tv on
the
Yeah! Network, but
only to later find his words cut to make him sound like an enemy to
patriotism.
Candide's
personal journey changes to one that questions how better than best
Freedonia is, and the old woman becomes someone who has lost much
more for the sake of comedic effect.
It's
the comedic tone that makes American
Candide such
a good read. Poking fun of everything that the characters encountered
was a staple of the original. Now in modern times, Candide and the
gang take the gas out of the contemporary political landscape,
capitalism, formal education, Hollywood and the news with a sarcastic
flare so rich that it’ll probably anger people that just can’t
take a joke about why someone would be flattered to be sold for five
kilos of cocaine. This
actually happens, and it's funny.
These
jokes may be hard to swallow because they’re often one-off quips
that move at the same fast-pace that drove the original plot. And
while it’s easy to call them politically incorrect, it’s this
lack of political correctness and sensitivity that make these jokes
work. Candide’s ignorance and naïveté function as the set-up and
bring him into settings where they turn into jokes when faced against
the punch lines of parodied reality. This happens when Candide meets
the old woman. After hearing her disastrous life story, he mistakes
her history as a victim for sacrifices she’s made on her journey to
Freedonia. However, like the original, such misunderstandings result
from Candide believing what he was taught, making the joke on him,
the idiot that refers to everyone as “dude.” This leaves his
chorus of “all for the best” to become synonymous with the
absurdities the characters encounter.
American
Candide
makes fun of modern culture's
obsession with money and the calamities politics get us into. At
the same time, it
reminds us that too often U.S. citizens sanction
their
actions and
values with the over repeated attitude of Americans
superiority.
And
after
finishing American
Candide
during the 2016 United States presidential campaign, it's kind of
hard not to see Candide
with characteristics of a
certain type of American ('Merican?). Voltaire's
Candide
asks
readers to watch a fool in love go on a journey that forced the
hero
to question what he was raised to believe. Giving
that hero a quest full of absurdities, Voltaire used comedy
to
encourage
readers to
ask
their own questions,
abandon theocratic influence that
nourished Leibnizian beliefs, and
enter the Age of Enlightenment. Transplanting
the characters of the past into
the world of today, American
Candide
reminds people they
need to
continue to ask these questions.
“Best
of all,” American
Candide
reminds us that the world hasn't changed so much since the 1740's, no
matter what we keep telling our selves.
American Candide
Mahendra Singh
Rosarium Publishing
2016-04
194 pages
soft cover
$12.95
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