University Daily Kansan
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Page 3
Monday, Feb. 8, 1960
By M. K. McKinney Assistant Instructor of English
CANDIDE, by Voltaire. Bantam Books, 35 cents. Translated by Lowell Blair.
The editor of this volume has not told us what text Blair has used for his translation. I suspect, however, that his translation and the text he used are adequate, for I have cursorily examined the edition put out in 1931 by la Société des textes français modernes and found that the translation does justice to Voltaire's language. I believe that the reader of this translation should have more confidence in this Bantam book than in the Modern Library edition, which adds a spurious Part II. This edition, furthermore, has an "Appreciation" by André Maurois, who wrote a biography of Voltaire in 1932; this "Appreciation" is extracted from that book.
Voltaire wrote "Candide" in 1759 to attack the philosophical optimism of Leibnitz as expressed in Pope's "Whatever is, is right." Dr. Pangloss, Candide's tutor, is the exponent of this philosophy, maintaining that since this is the best of all possible worlds, all things happen for the best—whether they be cruelties of war or earthquakes. Voltaire does not try to solve the problem of evil; he merely tries to show that Optimism is merely an excuse for overlooking persecution and stupidity.
Norman L. Torrey, who edited the Appleton-Century-Crofts translation of the story, says in his introduction that the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which killed more than thirty thousand people, made Voltaire "voice strenuous objections" to the belief that every degree of evil is necessary in the Great Chain of Being. To support this idea, he cites in his "The Spirit of Voltaire" (Columbia University Press, 1938) a letter which Voltaire had written to a M. Tonson of Lyons:
"There is some cruel physics for you. It will cause people no little embarrassment to divine how the laws of nature bring about such frightful disasters in the best of all possible worlds; a hundred thousand ants, our neighbors, crushed at one blow in our ant-heap, and half of them perishing doubtless in inexpressible anguish, in the midst of debris from which they could not be rescued; families ruined to the ends of Europe, the wealth of a hundred merchants from your country swallowed up in Lisbon's ruins. What a sad game of chance it is, the game of human life! What will the preachers say, especially if the palace of the Inquisition was spared? I dare say that at least the Reverend Fathers, the Inquisitors, were crushed like the others. That should teach men not to persecute one another. For while a few holy rogues burn a few fanatics, the earth swallows them all up together."
One doesn't have to be a specialist in the eighteenth century to enjoy this picaresque tale. He can read it on whatever level he chooses—as a philosophical tale, as a tale for its own sake, as a tale in the tradition of eighteenth century prose fiction, or as another way by which Voltaire attacked the persecuting power of the Church. For whatever reason one reads it, he will find it rewarding. And he will, I suspect, return to the little book several times during his life. As he gets on to the age that Voltaire had attained when he wrote "Candide," he may find as the hero did that we must cultivate our garden and leave off the attempts to solve the problem of evil.
From the Magazine Rack
The British Teenager
"In London, at any rate, we are witnessing a 'quiet' revolution within the teenage revolution itself. The outlines of the Secondary Modern (School) generation in the 1960's are beginning to form The Teddy Boy era is playing itself out. The LP Hi-Fi generator is on the way in. The butcher-boy jeans, velvet lapel coats and three-inch crepes are considered coarse and tasteless. They exist—but they no longer set the 'tone'. 'Teds' are almost square... Suits are dark, sober, and casual-formal, severely cut and narrow on the Italian pattern. Haircuts are 'modern'—a brisk, flat-topped French version of the now-juvenile American crew-cut, modestly called 'college style'. Shirts are either white-stiff or solid color close-knit wool in the Continental manner. Jeans are de rigueur, less blue-denim American, striped narrowly or black or khaki. The girls are short-skirted, sleekly groomed, pinpointed on stiletto heels, with set hair and Paris-boutique dead-pan makeup and mascara. Italian pointed shoes are absolute and universal.
"A fast-talking, smooth-running, hustling generation with an ad-lib gift of the gab, quick sensitivities and responses, and an acquired taste for the Modern Jazz Quartet. They are the 'prosperity' boys—not in the sense that they have a fortune stashed away, but in that they are familiar with the in-and-out flow of money . . . Their attitude to adults is less resentful than scornful. Adults are simply 'square'. Mugs. They are not 'with it' . . . School has passed through this generation like a dose of salts—but they are by no means intellectually backward. They are, in fact, sharp and self-inclined. Office boys—even van-boys—by day, they are record-sleeve boys by night . . . They seem culturally exploited rather than socially deprived. They stand at the end of the Teddy Boy era of the Welfare State. They could be the first generation of the Common Market."
(Excerpted from "Absolute Beginnings," by Stuart Hall in the autumn, 1959, issue of The Universities and Left Review.)
Around the Campus Levine to Edit Magazine
Stuart Levine, instructor of English, has been appointed editor of the Journal of the Central Mississippi Valley American Studies Assn.
The magazine serves scholars in the fields of American history, American literature, American art, architecture, music, drama, folklore and popular arts, the social sciences and the history of American science.
Edward F. Grier, professor of English, is the president of CMVASA and also serves on its editorial board. In an interview with the Daily Kansan, Mr. Levine said the magazine would continue to be primarily but not exclusively regional.
Two members of the KU graduating class of February, 1960 have been chosen by the Navy Department for additional training.
Ensign Duane L. DeWerff, Ellinwood, and Ensign Gerald M. Simmons, Parsons, were chosen for specialized training as a result of their scholastic records at the university.
Navy Selects Two For More Training
DeWerff will work in the field of guided missiles and Simmons will be concerned with the field of atomic energy.
A KU senior, William E. Bittner, Herington, died Jan. 27 in Watkins Hospital, where he had been a patient for nine days.
DiabeticCondition Fatal to KU Senior
Doctors attributed Bittner's death to a kidney failure. He had suffered from a severe diabetic condition since he was 14.
He was born Feb. 1, 1934, in Herington. Survivors are his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph V. Bittner, Herington, and two sisters, Carol Ann Bittner, of the home, and Mrs. Marilyn Stroda, of Hope.
Funeral services and burial were in Herington.
KU Will Conduct Summer Institute
KU has been named by the National Science Foundation as one of 15 universities in the nation to conduct a summer institute for elementary school teachers and supervisors in biological and physical sciences.
The grant from the Foundation is $51,800. Robert W. Ridgway, associate professor of education, will be director of the institute.
On the institute faculty will be Kenneth B. Armitage, assistant professor of zoology; Worthie H. Horr, professor of botany, and David S. Simonett, associate professor of geography. Other KU faculty members will lecture at the institute.
Between 1940 and 1957 the average number of years of schooling of U.S. citizens 25 and over increased by 3.9 years.
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