Uncle Dynamite by P. G. Wodehouse

Source of book: Audiobook I own

I try to read at least one book by P. G. Wodehouse each year - and at that rate, I will likely die before I finish all of them. Dude was prolific and lived a long life. Anyway, here are the ones I have written about on the blog:

Introduction to P. G. Wodehouse

Uncle Fred in the Springtime

The Adventures of Sally

Biffen’s Millions

Thank You Jeeves

The Uncollected Wodehouse

Love Among the Chickens

Jeeves And The Mating Season

Summer Lightning

Cocktail Time

Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen (aka The Cat-Nappers)

Uncle Dynamite is a book featuring Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham, otherwise known as Uncle Fred. For those unfamiliar with him, Uncle Fred is old of body, but juvenile of heart, always spreading what he calls “sweetness and light,” by means of crazy schemes and insane adventures. His particular victim is usually his nephew, the hapless “Pongo” Twistleton. I have written about two previous Uncle Fred stories: Uncle Fred in the Springtime, which is also a Lord Emsworth story; and Cocktail Time. 

As in the case of the latter, Uncle Dynamite is filled with literary references. Rather than Alice in Wonderland, this one is filled with Shakespeare references, usually in far less serious situations than in the original, which is part of the humor. 

Trying to summarize a Wodehouse plot is a bit like drawing a complicated flowchart or corporate organization. There are so many threads and complications that it can get confusing. Let me at least try to bring some order to the chaos of this book. 

Uncle Fred meets Bill Oakshot on the train. It turns out that they are neighbors. Bill is just returning from abroad, and is friends with Pongo. Bill also is the actual owner of Ashenden Manor, which is occupied by Bill’s uncle Aylmer Bostock, an overbearing and bombastic “dishpot,” as his maid describes him. Bill is in love with Hermione Bostock, who is engaged to Pongo, who is really still in love with Sally, an American girl who kind of resembles the other Sally from The Adventures of Sally, but is a different character. 

Pongo comes to Ashenden to meet the parents of his fiancee, and things go badly. Aylmer has a dreadfully tacky collection of African curios, and Pongo accidentally breaks one. And then, a bust as well. So Pongo substitutes a bust from Uncle Fred’s house (which is nearby), not knowing that it was made by Sally for purposes of smuggling jewels back to America without paying customs. 

In the meantime, Aylmer is suing Sally’s publisher brother Otis, so Sally wants Pongo to convince Aylmer to drop the suit. Oh, and the vicar has smallpox, so someone has to fill in and judge the “Bonny Baby” contest. 

Uncle Fred to the rescue. I’m not sure “rescue” is the best word here, however. Uncle Fred pretends to be expedition leader Major Brabazon-Plank, and has Bill invite him to Ashenden. Uncle Fred will then agree to judge the babies, steal back the bust, and set everything right. 

But there is more! Pongo is accused by a local policeman (also the fiance of the maid, Elsie Bean) of being an imposter. The real Major Plank shows up and is outraged at being impersonated. Hermione and Pongo quarrel, freeing everyone up to marry the “right” person, and Otis manages to sign Hermione to a book contract. Whew! And there is more, because things get a LOT more complicated before they sort themselves out. 

Through it all, Uncle Fred maintains his confidence and serenity, even as everyone else flips out. There is always a way through for Uncle Fred, and things always work out just fine in the end. 

As usual, there are a bunch of hilarious lines. In this book, many of them involve the fusty copper, Harold Potter. In this case, Sally has (for reasons) pushed him into the duck pond.

 

"I was assaulted by the duck pond."

"By the duck pond?" Sir Aylmer asked, his eyes widening.

"Yes, sir."

"How the devil can you be assaulted by a duck pond?"

Constable Potter saw where the misunderstanding had arisen. The English language is full of these pitfalls.

"When I say 'by the duck pond,' I didn't mean 'by the duck pond,' I meant 'by the duck pond.' That is to say," proceeded Constable Potter, speaking just in time, "'near' or 'adjacent to', in fact 'on the edge of'."

Or his tendency to use silly pseudo-legal phrasing:

 

“Like as it might have been.” As in “Something pushed me, like as it might have been a hand.” 

 And then, there are lines like this one:

 

A sticky moisture had begun to bedew his brow, as if he had entered the hot room of some Turkish bath of the soul.

 It is all in good fun, and the stakes are, broadly speaking, pretty low. That’s Wodehouse. He doesn’t address the deep issues of his time, but instead pokes fun of human nature in the most ludicrous manner possible. Ultimately, the characters who, like Uncle Fred, are able to laugh at themselves, are the ones who prevail. And the others? Well, they get their just deserts, which is usually to be made ridiculous. 

This audiobook was read by the late great Jonathan Cecil, who is my favorite Wodehouse reader. And that’s saying something, because Martin Jarvis is also superb. You can’t go wrong with either. What I like best about Cecil is his amazing ability to create distinct voices which are so consistent throughout that you can tell who is speaking simply from the voice. Wodehouse often contains slam-bang dialogue, and it really helps to know who is speaking at any given time. With Cecil, it is so very clear that you forget you are listening to a single person. From the suavity of Uncle Fred, to the timorousness of Pongo, to the bombast of Aylmer, to the basso profundo of Hermione - it’s delightful. 

 

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

Because of Covid-19, theaters are closed here in California, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival is cancelled. Thus, I doubt I am going to have many chances to see live theater in the near future. We have been getting by with video sources, even though they are not the same. The Globe in London is releasing filmed performances of various plays, including this one.

 I first saw A Winter’s Tale at Bakersfield College about two decades ago. I can’t remember if I was dating my wife or recently married, but it would have been before kids complicated our theater life. Of course, eventually, they started coming with us, which has been all kinds of fun. 

 The Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s problem plays. Or maybe one of his late romances. Whatever you want to call it, it is a comedy in the sense of having a happy ending, but could easily have been a tragedy with a slightly different ending. 

 I find it fascinating in part because of the way Shakespeare separates the serious drama and the comedy. The first part of the play, set in “Sicilia,” is drama and tragedy. The second part, full of comedy and high spirits, is set in “Bohemia.” (The locations are obviously fictitious, because Bohemia then and now is landlocked, and does not have a coast as in the play.) At the end, the humor of Bohemia practically invades the traumatized Sicily and brings (literally) life back to it. 

 Shakespeare borrowed the plot from a story by Robert Greene, Pandosto. The original is a full tragedy, with the king killing himself after accidentally falling in love with his lost daughter. Shakespeare chose to dramatically change the ending, writing what is now one of the most iconic scenes in the play, when the statue comes to life. But I get ahead of the plot. 

 Leontes, king of Sicilia, is entertaining his childhood friend, Polixenes, king of Bohemia. Polixenes is homesick, and decides to return. Leontes tries to persuade him to stay, but is unsuccessful, until queen Hermione intervenes, and persuades Polixenes to stay. 

 Rather than please Leontes, this act makes him insanely jealous, imagining that Herminone is cheating on him with his friend. Furious, orders one of his lords, Camillo, to poison Polixenes. Instead, Camillo, convinced of the innocence of the queen, warns Polixenes and the two of them flee to Bohemia. Leontes then denounces the queen despite her pleas of innocence. Her tears are of no avail, he calls her unborn child a bastard, and throws her in prison. When the child is born, orders that she be abandoned to her death.

 Herminone appeals to the Oracle, which declares her innocent. Leontes is not convinced, despite the warning that he will have no heir until his lost daughter is found. As a result of his stubbornness, his son dies of a wasting sickness, and Herminone appears to die as well. 

 Bereft, Leontes comes to his senses at last, and realizes he is wrong. However, it is, at this point too late. 

 The courtier sent to abandon the daughter does so, but is chased away soon after, with Shakespeare’s most famous stage direction, “Exit, pursued by a bear.” This was a disappointing moment in this particular production, with just a banner with a picture of a bear unfurled. Was the bear suit at the cleaners or something? 

 The infant is found by a shepherdess (shepherd in the play, but a shepherdess in this production) and her son. 

The next act opens sixteen years later. The infant has grown into a lovely young woman, Perdita, who has caught the eye of Prince Florizel, who courts her in disguise. Polixenes, accompanied by Camillo, spies on them, and erupts in fury at their betrothal. After threatening Perdita and her adoptive family with horrid punishment, he orders them never to see each other. 

 Camillo has other ideas, however. He wishes to return to his native land, and takes Florizel and Perdita with him. 

 At the end of the play, all these identities are revealed, and father and daughter are reunited - and Florizel and Perdita can marry and clinch the alliance. 

 But there is one thing remaining. The faithful Paulina, widow of the unfortunate Autigonus, eaten by the bear, reveals that she has a peculiar statue, true to life of the dead Hermione. It is no spoiler this many centuries later to say that the statue is really Hermione herself, carefully tended by Paulina all these years. After sixteen years of penance, Leontes is a changed man, and finally worthy of Hermione. 

 A play like this, with its improbable plot, stands or falls on the quality of its direction and acting. The Globe, unsurprisingly, rose to the occasion regarding both. (My only quibble is the lack of a bear…) 

 While all of the male leads were good, I thought that the three females around whom the play centers were particularly outstanding. Sirene Saba, as Paulina, had tremendous stage presence and a projection of authority that was a perfect contrast to the unstable and irrational Leontes (Will Kean in a convincing performance.) Nora Lopez-Holden as Perdita brought the right level of exuberance and naivete to the role. Likewise, Luke MacGregor as Florizel seemed just the sort of ditzy prince to make a game of courting a shepherdess. Becci Gemmel, in a trousers role as the clow, Autocylus, was hilarious. Adrien Bower (Camillo), Oliver Ryan (Polixenes), and Howard Ward (Antigonus) were all suited to their parts. 

 Special props, though, go to Priyanga Burford as Hermione. She is every bit as commanding as Paulina, then vulnerable and shattered after the false accusations - but she retains her dignity throughout. The statue scene was incredible because of her ability. In previous versions, Hermione is posed in a neutral position, to make standing perfectly still easy. In this one, Burford held her arms in an artistic pose. For at least ten minutes. The level of control this must have required is astonishing. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her during the whole scene. Since this was a filmed version of a live performance, this wasn’t done with camera cuts. She did this - night after night. Highly impressive.

The unjustly accused Hermione (center), with her irrational husband Leontes (right), as Paulina (left) looks on with horror.

Florizel and Perdita at the carnival.

 I also love that the Globe uses live musicians and music composed for the occasion. This was, like previous plays I have seen, a good bit of the fun. 

Unfortunately, by the time I got to writing this, the streaming of this play had ended. However, The Globe intends to continue to release past productions in two week increments, and I will be watching as many as I can. (Next up: The Merry Wives of Windsor.) 

 

Information about the plays can be found here.

The specifics for The Winter’s Tale are here.  

 

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Source of book: I own this.

 This was this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. One of the things I enjoy about this club is that I end up reading interesting books that I never would have discovered on my own. I hadn’t heard of either this book (which just came out) and wasn’t familiar with James McBride, although a few of his other books sound familiar. However, I rather enjoyed it, as did other members of our club, making it one of the most universally loved selections since I joined the club. 

 James McBride has apparently written a number of other books, often with historical settings, and was awarded a National Humanities medal by President Obama. I dare say I will be putting his other books on my reading list.

 I’m not even sure what to call Deacon King Kong. It is literary fiction, in my opinion. But it is such a weird blend of pathos and humor that it defies categorization. It is a thoughtful book, but with elements of slapstick and magical realism. It makes a pair of suicides seem like a sacrament - a baptism. It makes a potential affair seem good for the characters. It has killer red ants, killer hooch, and mysterious cheese. And, more than anything, it has a bunch of memorable characters, any of which could be the center of their own story. 

 Set in the Brooklyn projects in 1969, the book starts and centers around a bizarre incident. “Sportcoat,” an old man who lost his wife a few years back and has spiraled into alcoholism, shoots the ear off the local drug dealer, a young man named Deems, who was once Sportcoat’s protege in the local baseball team. From there, the past and present swirl around the fallout from that incident, drawing in gangsters, cops, smugglers, an ancient artifact, and a few old secrets. Sportcoat is the deacon of the title - a deacon of Five Ends Baptist Church who prefers the illicit hooch King Kong to any commercial preparation. 

 As it turns out, there are connections to The Elephant, the last in a line of Italian smugglers. Why did his dad fund the construction of the church, including an epic mural of Christ on the side? Deems, in turn, is the pivot point of a drug war. And why did Sportcoat’s wife Hettie end up floating in the harbor? And what happened to the Christmas Fund money she kept but never told anyone where? 

 McBride brings in an honest Irish cop trying to make it alive to retirement, a dying gangster whose daughter runs a bagel shop, the delightful maintenance man for the building, Hot Sausage, and so many more. 

 I hesitate to describe the book more than that, because the plot is fun and full of surprises (although I figured out a few things ahead of time.) I recommend reading it for yourself. 

 McBride’s writing is outstanding - one of the comments in our club meeting was that from the first few pages, you really feel like you are there. The sights and sounds and smells and social dynamics really come alive. One person who had lived in New York City concurred with the reality of the area described - McBride grew up there, the son of an African American preacher and a Jewish-Polish mother - the daughter of a rabbi. The thing is, McBride doesn’t actually spend a whole lot of words on descriptions: he manages to create the picture without obviously doing so. Also a feature of his style is that he can take shootings and drugs and booze and gangsters and add the humor and slapstick without it feeling like a parody. It’s as much a part of the world he creates as the ghost of Hettie. 

 There are lots of good lines, a few of which I jotted down. 

 The first is an incident that is pretty hilarious, but has almost nothing to do with the rest of the plot: an explanation of how the red ants came to Brooklyn. Hector, the Colombian immigrant, gets too big for his britches, and dumps his wife and kids back home. She tearfully agrees to a divorce, and packs him lunch. When he opens it back in Brooklyn, he finds it full of the red ants, and a note saying “Adios motherfucker...we know you ain’t sending no pesos!” The ants establish themselves, and become part of the yearly life of the projects. This leads into a fantastic sentence in which the ants become

 

...a sole phenomenon in the Republic of Brooklyn, where cats hollered like people, dogs eat their own feces, aunties chain-smoked and died at age 102, a kid named Spike Lee saw God, the ghosts of the departed Dodgers soaked up all possibility of new hope, and penniless desperation ruled the lives of the suckers too black or too poor to leave, while in Manhattan the buses ran on time, the lights never went out, the death of a single white child in a traffic accident was a page one story, while phony versions of black and Latino life ruled the Broadway roost, making white writers rich — West Side Story, Porgy & Bess, Purlie Victorious — and on it went, the whole business of the white man's reality lumping together like a giant, lopsided snowball, the Great American Myth, the Big Apple, the Big Kahuna, the City That Never Sleeps, while the blacks and Latinos who cleaned the apartments and dragged out the trash and made the music and filled the jails with sorrows slept the sleep of the invisible and functioned as local color.

 

I’m not the only reviewer to have noticed that line. It’s arguably the most memorable line in the book.

 The missing Christmas Fund money is not only a big motivation for Sportcoat, it puzzles everyone in the church. Hettie never did disclose its location, and it never does appear. (Sorry about the spoiler.) Did she simply pocket the money herself? It seems possible. Is it hiding somewhere in the church? Also possible. What isn’t a mystery is why she kept it herself. 

 

“She ain’t supposed to walk around with the Christmas box.”

“She had to hide it someplace after she collected for it. Normally she hid it at church. But she didn’t always have time to wait for church to empty out. Sometimes folks would linger eating fish dinners or the pastor would preach overtime or some such thing and she had to go home, so she brung it home with her.”

“Why didn’t she lock it in the pastor’s office?”

“What fool would keep money ‘round a pastor?” Rufus asked. 

Sportcoat nodded knowingly.  

 

I have been a part of a number of churches in my lifetime, and one thing I can say is that I agree with Rufus. And, interestingly, one of the best ways to tell if a pastor is honorable about money is how careful he is to distance himself from the money. The honorable ones keep as far away as possible from it, delegating the financial stuff to someone independent. (Or at least as independent as possible in a small church.) It makes a difference. 

 Another interesting observation comes from the old, retired gangster, the Governor, talking about his deceased brother. (Who was also an artifact smuggler - he found a cave of stolen Nazi treasures including, in a fictional incident, the Venus of Willendorf. This artifact is in the book, although clearly the whole episode is fiction, not fact.) 

 

“He had an apartment in the Village the size of a rugby field. Full of fancy things. I never asked. He had no kids, so I figured it wasn’t anything. My poppa couldn’t stand Macy. He used to say, ‘Macy likes boys.’ I told Poppa, ‘There was a priest at Saint Andrews who’s said to like boys.’ But he didn’t want to hear it. I was a young man back then, fast on my feet and a bit of a wanker, but even then I knew the difference between a sick man who likes children and a man sweet on men.” 

 

This is a distinction lost on a lot of people in my Fundie former tribe, alas. 

 Another perceptive passage concerning sex is between the Irish cop and the wife of the pastor of Five Ends Baptist. She is in a loveless marriage, to an older man who she married before she understood what she was doing. As a divorce attorney, this rings true. 

 

She had been seventeen when she wed a man twelve years older than her. He had seemed to have purpose but turned out to have none, other than an affinity for football games and the ability to pretend to be what he was not, to pretend to feel things he did not feel, to make jokes out of things that did not work for him, and like too many men she knew, daydream about meeting some lovely young thing from the choir, preferably at three a.m., in the choir pew. She didn’t hate her husband. She just didn’t know him.

 

This one too was fascinating. Sister Gee (the pastor’s wife) is pressed for information by Potts, the Irish cop, after an incident in which the hapless Earl tries to put a hit on Sportcoat, but ends up bonked by a wayward bottle, then set on the subway back home by Sister Gee and a young gentle giant from the church. 

 

“You should have called us.”

“Why we got to have the police around every time we has a simple party? Y’all don’t watch out for us. Y’all watch over us. I don’t see y’all out there standing over the white folks in Park Slope when they has their block parties.” 

 

In recent years, as cell phone video has made it increasingly obvious even to this sheltered white guy that our experience with the police is vastly different from the experience of non-whites, McBride calls it straight. “To Protect and Serve,” as the LAPD motto goes, is directed at whites. The police protect “us” from “them.” And serve “us” at the expense of “them.” It’s a heartbreaking state of affairs. 

 

In a conversation later in the book, Potts can’t quite understand why the Five Ends folks are so obsessed with that Christmas Club money. 

 

“You were talking about the church money. It’s got nothing to do with this trouble.”

“It’s got everything to do with it. That Christmas Club money is all we can control. We can’t stop these drug dealers from selling poison in front of our houses. Or make the city stop sending our kids to lousy schools. We can’t stop folks from blaming us for everything gone wrong in New York, or stop the army from calling our suns to Vietnam after them Vietcong done cut the white soldiers’ toenails too short to walk. But the little nickels and dimes we saved up so we can give our kids ten minutes of love at Christmastime, that’s ours to control. What’s wrong with that?”

 

Although Potts isn’t quite getting it, he is falling in love with Sister Gee, and he flounders trying to express his concern for the danger she is in. After all, the drug bigwig wants to put the hit on Sportcoat; and, since the hapless Earl failed, is sending in his big gun: Harold Dean. 

 

He wanted to say, “He’s a killer and I don’t want him near you.” But he had no idea what her reaction would be. He didn’t even know what Harold Dean looked like. He had no information other than an FBI report with no photo, only the vaguest description that he was a negro who was “armed and extremely dangerous.” 

 

Dang, that’s some good satire. And it particularly hits home because “Harold Dean” is actually Haroldeen, a young woman. The whole “hey, he looked like the suspect” is problematic for the reason above. It seems the “all black people look alike” trope is alive and well in law enforcement, alas.

 [Side note: years ago, when I saw the Harlem Globetrotters, one of the jokes was that the big “clown prince” guy borrowed a purse from an older woman in the front row. When the referee told him to give it back, he said he couldn’t, because he wasn’t sure who he took it from. It was some woman. What woman? A white woman. Which one? He didn’t know, because they all looked alike…]

 Anyway, Potts keeps harping on “he’s dangerous.” Sister Gee is ready with a great response:

 

“Nothing in this world is dangerous unless white folks says it is,” she said flatly. “Danger here. Danger there. We don’t need you to tell us about danger in these projects. We don’t need you to say what the world is to us.”

 

Preach it. And Potts really is trying to get it, which makes him better than a whole lot of people in our country. 

 I have to end with a humorous bit. It would take too long to explain the characters and the situation, but suffice it to say that rumor has it that Hot Sausage was killed in a gun battle. (He was only injured, don’t worry.) 

 

Joaquin, several spots behind them, looked strangely sad. “I borrowed twelve dollars from Sausage,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t pay it back.”

“God, you are cheap,” Miss Izi said. She was standing a good five people ahead of her ex-husband and stepped out of line to address him. “You’re so tight with money your ass squeaks when you walk.” 

 

This book was a lot of fun, thoughtful and perceptive, and packed with great characters. I’m definitely planning to add some more James McBride books to my list. 

 

***

 

Just for fun, here is the list of books that our book club has read. At least the ones I have read too. Most of these were read for the club, but a few were ones I read previously - those posts pre-date the club discussion - and some I read afterward, because I missed the discussion. 

 

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Bad News by Edward St. Aubyn

Circe by Madeline Miller

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Calypso by David Sedaris

The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

There There by Tommy Orange

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Educated by Tara Westover

Stiff by Mary Roach

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Artemis by Andy Weir

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

 

Candide by Voltaire

Source of book: I own this. 

This is one of those books that I probably should have read years ago. We read about it in high school, but I don’t think we read any excerpts. (Probably too racy for a Fundie curriculum...those crazy French authors!) I also didn’t own a copy until recently. I picked up a lovely hardback Easton Press edition at a recent library sale, which gave me the chance to read it. 

First published in 1759, Candide caused controversy and scandal from the outset. Although it was widely known that Voltaire wrote it, he used a pseudonym for plausible deniability. His publishers weren’t so lucky, and were hounded and prosecuted and bankrupted for their pains. Ah, the good old days, when government censorship was inescapable. (Actually, Candide was indeed Banned In Boston in 1929.) As is often the case with censorship, this only increased the book’s popularity, and it became one of the most widely read and translated works of its era. 

Candide was influenced by Jonathan Swift’s earlier work, Gulliver’s Travels, as well as other picaresque novels, travelogues, and coming-of-age stories of the time. The title character (whose name is a bit of a pun, like the other characters) grows up in relative luxury, raised by a nobleman, and taught by Dr. Pangloss, who subscribes to Leibniz’ philosophy that we live in the best of all possible worlds. When Candide tries some kissing on the baron’s daughter, he is evicted, and begins a series of tragic and ludicrous adventures, becoming more and more disillusioned. 

The story itself is highly unrealistic, shockingly bloody (although few actually end up dying like we think they have), and deliciously satirical. Voltaire takes on pretty much every institution of his time, but also a lot of beliefs - and the problem of evil. Religion, of course, is thoroughly skewered, which is one reason it was banned. But also, governments, the military, philosophers, and society get solid digs throughout. Hypocrisy isn’t hard to find, of course. 

Regular readers of English Victorian literature like myself tend to find French writers a bit...racy. The thing of it is that they assume a certain degree of female promiscuity as normal, and don’t have the obsession with virginity that English and American writers seem to. This book plays sex for laughs and horror. The main female character, Cunegonde, is raped in the second chapter, is kept as a mistress by both a Jew and a priest at the same time (shocking enough at the time), becomes the mistress of a Governor in South America, then a sex slave to a pirate, and finally ends up as the nagging wife of Candide. But at least she becomes a good cook. (It is hard to explain how funny that line is without the context.) 

The book is both very much of its time, yet with timeless satire. I can’t say all of it has aged well - the bit about the women taking monkeys as lovers feels like a racist jab at indigenous peoples, for example. But much more feels contemporary. After all, Voltaire points out the tendency of powerful men to rape and abuse women, or at least use and discard them. Greed and jealousy haven’t gone away either, nor has ludicrous class chauvinism. Human nature is still human nature. 

Speaking of that, Candide is forced into the Bulgarian military, but chickens out and hides during the brutal battle. Voltaire’s description of the aftereffects of the battle are unfortunately spot on:

He clambered over heaps of dead and dying men and reach a neighboring village, which was in ashes; it was an Abare village, which the Bulgarians had burned in accordance with international law. Here, old men dazed with blows watched the dying agonies of their murdered wives who clutched their children to their bleeding breasts; there, disemboweled girls who had been made to satisfy the natural appetites of heroes gasped their last sighs; others, half-burned, begged to be put to death. Brains were scattered on the ground among dismembered arms and legs.

As he flees this horror, he comes across a village that belongs to the other side, and the same thing was done by them. At this point, he is still clinging to the “this is the best of all possible worlds” philosophy, but it is getting harder. 

Soon afterward, Candide is reunited with Pangloss, who relates the sad fates of the baron and his household. (Although it turns out they aren’t all dead…) Pangloss looks like hell, and confesses that when Candide caught him “giving a lesson in experimental physics” to the maid, he caught syphilis. 

“My dear Candide! You remember Paquette, the maid-servant of our august Baroness; in her arms I enjoyed the delights of Paradise which have produced the tortures of Hell by which you see I am devoured; she was infected and perhaps is dead. Paquette received this present from a most learned monk, who had it from the source; for he received it from an old countess, who had it from a cavalry captain, who owed it to a marchioness, who derived it from a page, who had received it from a Jesuit, who, when a novice, had it in direct line from one of the companions of Christopher Columbus.” 

Voltaire is actually correct about this: it is generally agreed that Columbus’ crew brought syphilis back from the New World with them. But notice how many unspoken truths Voltaire puts in this one statement. Pangloss taking advantage of his position to seduce a maid, who had previously slept with a monk, who also did it with a countess. The randy countess did it with both clergy and military; the soldier was irresistible to multiple rich women, one of whom also had the hots for young boys. (A page would be from ages 7-14, typically.) That boy was infected after being raped by a priest, who got it by a chain back to Columbus. That’s a lot of morally and/or socially unacceptable relationships that were widely known to exist, but were not always talked about in public. 

Despite all this, Pangloss continues to cling to his philosophy. 

“It was all indispensable, and private misfortunes make the public good, so that the more private misfortunes there are, the more everything is well.” 

If you think this sounds a bit like Social Darwinism (which would come into vogue a century later), you are right. 

Candide is, through improbably circumstances, reunited with Cunegonde, only to find that she is dependent on selling her body to the Jewish merchant and the Inquisitor on alternating days. They both show up, and, jealous of finding Cunegonde in the presence of another man, try to kill Candide, who kills them instead in self defense. Cunegonde marvels that Candide, who is both mild mannered and incompetent with a sword, manages this. 

“My dear young lady,” replied Candide, “when a man is in love, jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he is beside himself.” 

That’s a laugh out loud line, and wouldn’t be entirely out of place in The Princess Bride. 

One of the watercolor illustrations from my Easton Press edition of the book, by Sylvain Sauvage.

There is a decent amount of gratuitous boobage, but what do you expect from a French artist?

The party flees to South America, where they end up in Paraguay. Candide’s servant, Cacambo (the most rational person in this crazy book), spent time there, and explains how things are. 

“Their government is a most admirable thing. The kingdom is already more than three hundred leagues in diameter and is divided into thirty provinces. Los Padres have everything and the people have nothing; ‘tis the masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part, I know nothing so divine as Los Padres who here make war on the Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors; who here kill Spaniards and at Madrid send them to Heaven; all this delights me…” 

Eventually, Candide meets another philosopher, Martin, who is the opposite of Pangloss. Martin is cynical and pessimistic about everything, which makes him as mockable as Pangloss. Here are a couple of exchanges:

“But to what end was this world formed?” said Candide.

“To infuriate us,” replied Martin.

I am reminded of the famous line from The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy…

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory mentioned, which states that this has already happened.

Later in the conversation, the naive Candide asks another question:

“Do you think,” said Candide, “that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical and silly?”

“Do you think,” said Martin, “that sparrow-hawks have always eaten the pigeons they came across?”

“Yes, of course,” said Candide.

“Well,” said Martin, “if sparrow-hawks have always possessed the same nature, why should you expect men to change theirs?”

Near the end, Candide and Martin are the guests of Pococurante, a rich epicurean who is a critic of everything. Martin is just cynical, but Pococurante finds his “excellent taste” prevents him from enjoying nearly everything. After dismissing the classics of the time as mostly rubbish, Pococurante gives away his game:

“Fools admire everything in a celebrated author. I only read to please myself, and I only like what suits me.” 

I know a few people like that. Nothing against reading for fun - hey, I do it all the time! But to go through life unchallenged, only dabbling in what you already know and like, seems a tragedy. 

After all these crazy adventures, Pangloss, Candide, Martin, Cunegonde, and a few others they have picked up on the way, settle down on a bit of land in a sort of commune, and find some bit of contentment, if not exactly happiness. Martin urges everyone to work without arguing as that is the only way life will be endurable. Pangloss, despite admitting that he didn’t actually believe his own optimism, keeps on preaching it, claiming that all the horrors of the past were necessary for their current situation. Candide, finally older and wiser, ends the book by saying:

“‘Tis well said,” replied Candide, “but we must cultivate our gardens.” 

Candide is unlike any other book I have read, I must say. While clearly in the 18th Century style, it’s short episodes and rapid-fire plot contrast with the more wordy and rambling style of Swift and others. The book is short, but covers a bewildering amount of ground. All the wit and satire happens in such a rapid-fire manner that you can’t just whip through it - you have to stop and savor it. In a way, I was reminded of Mark Twain, who also used unexpected twists, improbable events, and razor-sharp satire throughout his work. 

***

Update: I got busy and completely forgot that I needed to add music to this! 

Back in the day, when I was a rookie violinist with the BSO, we had these summer pops concerts outdoors in the heat. We got a full rehearsal and a quick run-through before the concert, and that was it. We played 1812 Overture at the end with fireworks and stuff. 

Anyway, because literally everyone besides my brother and me had played the stuff a gazillion times, we got handed our music before the first rehearsal (we had a shot at 1812 because our teacher gave us parts to work on), and had to sight read Bernstein's Candide Overture. 

Total flop sweat time. 

We managed to make it through without playing in the rests, at least. Now, it doesn't seem as terrifying as it did back then, but I still remember that feeling of panic. Welcome to the big league, kid...