Candide and the intellectual power of the author

Candide

Voltaire
here is another satire on human nature, laid bare with all of its deficiency: cruel, stupid, ugly and senseless; and on this world: meaningless, indifferent and chaotic.  it is a carefully constructed argument against the presumed purposeful human existence, expressed as "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds".  the rebuttal is caricatural but powerful; the stories, while sketchy and conceptual, are intriguing enough to hold one's attention and sympathy. from time to time, i mentally compared it to Gulliver's Travels. while it is cruder and less imaginative as literature, Candide does deliver its intended message effectively with blunt and brutal directness.

i had not read Voltaire's works till this novella and was rather surprised to learn, from wiki, that it was practically the only one of his thousand books still widely read. it seems sorrowfully inadequate to his lasting fame. evidently, one can be prodigiously intelligent and productive without being truly original. and time will erase all but the most indented traces. nonchalantly. without a yawn.

old dueling - the strange case of Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Haggard

She

King Somomon's Mines
by H. Rider Haggard


Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson

googling the most read books of all time, i was surprised (and ashamed) that i had never heard of "She" or H. Rider Haggard.  almost impatiently, i read through his two most famous books in next couple of days: first the Queen, then the King. it was certainly enjoyable, but i could easily imagine a much younger me to be mesmerized by such stories while observing this older, if not wiser, me criticizing the writing with detachment. like those stereotypical "good bad books", the plots are intriguing but the narrative plain, with the characters poorly depicted and of little development.  It also reminds one how time has changed. one of the main attractions of such stories is the description of vanishing worlds of past and lands far far away.  now with globalization, with internet, and with all sorts of blending and mingling, even moon has been touched upon and Mars bare for all to see, the only lost land seems these old generations of fantasy.

it was mentioned in the wiki entry that Haggard was prompted to write the books by the huge success of Stevenson's "Treasure Island". he even placed a bet that his stories would be far better. i did buy a copy of "Treasure Island" many years ago for the boys. neither was interested in reading so i didn't bother either. now i wasted no time to read Stevenson's classic.

well, almost from page one, it was a "hands down" in my mind whose books are better. far better: the writing and characterization, assuming the plotting is at par.  by this time, i was also reminded of Stevenson's Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. so intellectually, Stevenson was also superior.  i could only say i wish i had read Mr. Haggard at a much younger age.  Stevenson is probably timeless, however.

Travel with Gulliver again, or for the first time

Gulliver's travels
by Jonathan Swift
it's about the land of little men and the land of big men: one of those never-to-be-forgotten stories in everyone's childhood. i did not know for all those years, however, that it was actually an adult book: a satire on human nature.

with kindle, i started to read Swift with "a modest proposal" and "the battle of the books". i was not particularly engaged in either: so yesterday and so far away. but Gulliver's travels was different.  i immediately tagged along with Gulliver and was delighted to revisit those good old lands, this time, seen through the eyes of  the very original and bitter old Gulliver (or Mr. Swift). it turns out the Lilliputians (little men) are narrow-minded and mean and Brobdingnagians (big men) insensitive; Lupatanians are boring and Houyhnhnmsians too noble to reach. Yahoos? ouch! that's us, the mere human beings: too degenerate to bear.  the stories are delicious, cute, funny, ridiculous, realistic, other-worldly. and more. what a book. how one wishes to be able to write like that!