NL: Zadig

This time we read Zadig by Voltaire.

I had read this years and years ago, but I reread it for this discussion. First, I have to say that I still think all that whining Zadig does about how his wife "wanted to cut off his nose" is stupid. His whole plot to make her want to cut off his nose was perverse, and he deserved that she lost her good opinion of him. The widow Cosrou made a stupid vow and thought of a clever way out of it, and Azora shoudn't have carried on so - but she didn't "want to cut off his nose". She wanted to cut off the nose of a dead man - any dead man - to save the life of a living man, and one who would save her from being alone. No comparison.

And I still don't understand why Cador told the King that Astarte had fled to Memphis, when that's where he told Zadig to go ... surely the King's men might have recognized the other fugitive?

But that's reading too much into the necessary plot machinations that make Zadig a cross between Sinbad and Job - a man who has all virtues and advantages and who is yet driven hither and thither by Destiny, only to finally be told by no less than an angel with whom he has briefly traveled "unaware" that although this is not (as another Voltaire character famously puts it) the best of all possible worlds, still "everything you see down here, on this little speck of dust where you have been born, necessarily occupies its own appointed place and time in accordance with the immutable laws of Him who embraces all things." The angel argues that a world without evil could indeed exist, but "such an order, which would be a perfect order, can exist only in the eternal abode of the Supreme Being" and that as such, any lesser world is necessarily filled with evil - but "there is no evil from which no good comes."

This is a less Leibnizian view that Dr Pangloss's "it's all for the best in this best of all possible worlds" (a view which becomes, after wars, rapes, beatings, kidnappings, and murders, more than a little bizarre), but it's still a rather pernicious one. And the angel's statement that "there is no such thing as chance. Everything is either a test or a punishment, a reward or a precaution" still asserts (as, of course, an angel would have to) that this world is of less importance than the next. (And, of course, that God has the right to test and punish.)

"Feeble mortal," instructs the angel, "cease to argue against that which you should rather worship and adore." And, by implication, cease to question that which you should rather accept and endure.

But there is a difference between Zadig and Candide more profound than the degree of the heroes' trials. Candide eventually comes to understand that Dr Pangloss's outlook is absurd and useless; he settles instead on "we must tend our garden". Zadig, on the other hand, musters nothing more than a feeble and - crucially - unanswered "But..." in response to the angel.

Yet that "But" is important. It signals that Zadig isn't convinced by the angel's lecture. And the angel's refusal to answer it signals that perhaps the position isn't defensible. "Cease to question" works best as a defense of something that questions will expose, after all.

It's not surprising to find that Zadig was written a decade earlier than Candide: Voltaire's thoughts on Optimism moved from acceptance to rejection. In Zadig we see the beginning of that rejection: although it all ends well, the device of the Appendix - which was written in 1747 or 8 - adding two chapters which, as is stated in the Appendix itself, "should clearly come after the twelfth and before Zadig's arrival in Syria", catapults the reader back into the tribulations of our hero, as if to say that the happy ending - "Zadig became King and was happy.... it was the finest age the world had ever known. Justice and love ruled the Empire." - may be too pat and too unsatisfactory an answer.

There remains that "But".

p.s.: I can't let this go without quoting this comment by Ryan North over at Dinosaur Comics, on the subject of an Australian Batman:

And now, several people have written me to tell me that Daniel Batman is actually the direct descendant of the guy who founded Melbourne, John Batman! Melbourne was almost called "Batmania". There is an alternate universe where people are living in Batmania, Australia. If this is not the final nail in the coffin for Leibniz's "We are living in the best of all possible worlds" argument, I don't know what is.

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Next time we're going to read Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino. If you'd like to join, please do! It's easy: just read the book and post something on August 1. It doesn't have to be a review (some members never do reviews) - an essay, reflection, rant - anything that's a reaction to the book will do. Then post a comment on someone's blog and let us know you've done it. You can read this from the Exterminator for more info, and contact him to sign up a bit (only a bit) more formally.