I finally broke down and bought a Candide with proper footnotes so that I could read something by Voltaire now that I'm, like, reading his biography and helping to write fic about him and such :P I'd tried my completely-footnote-less copy last year at around this time, and gave up because although I was enjoying it, I could see that I was missing quite a lot.
I chose this one under the vague idea that "critical edition" was what I wanted, and also I read the sample and thought the footnotes were probably decent enough, whereas most other editions I tried in the five minutes I looked around had no footnotes. I don't know that I'm totally content with the notes now that I have them (they are sort of short) but they're actually not too bad for my uses, as I need them to explicate things I didn't know I was missing, and once I know I'm missing them I can go look them up or ask in salon :) It's the stuff I don't know I'm missing that bothers me...
I've read the first half so far and it turns out the first several chapters are relevant to our fandom :)
Chapter 2 - in which Candide gets recruited into the army of the Bulgars - "Voltaire chose this name to represent the Prussian troops of Frederick the Great because he wanted to make an insinuation of pedastry against both the soldiers and their master. Cf. French bougre, English "bugger."
LOLOLOLOL. This is the kind of thing I'm here for, footnotes! Also as always I think it is hilarious that Voltaire is so stuck on Fritz that he has to make fun of Fritz being gay, lol.
"Two men in blue took note of [Candide]... 'Aren't you five feet five inches tall?'" And the footnote attached to that: "Frederick had a passion for sorting out his soldiers by size; several of his regiments would accept only six-footers."
...surely... they are mixing up Fritz and FW?? But still, this is 5000% funnier now that I know the Fritz/FW connection (tall guys, while sad for the tall guys, is always going to be hilarious to me)
The impressing of Candide into the army of the Bulgars by two guys who accost him in a tavern reminds me a lot of Ulrich Bräker's memoirs that selenak summarized for us a long time ago. I was going to ask if it was plausible that Voltaire had read his memoirs, but once I finally figured out the name of the guy and was thence able to look him up in rheinsberg, I saw that they were published much later than Candide. Well, I imagine he was just one of many.
Chapter 2/3: "The King of the Bulgars went to war with the King of the Abares." The footnote says here that this is a reference to the Seven Years' War and that "Allegorically, the Abares are the French, who opposed the Prussians in the conflict known to hindsight history as the Seven Years' War."
Me: The French?? Against the Prussians?? Footnote: Look, the Seven Years' War is complicated, okay? We are a footnote, we're not going to get all of this across in our allotted couple of lines. Check out the Battle of Minden, that's what he's referring to, it took place in Westphalia which is where Voltaire has set this bit. Wikipedia: Yeah, your buddy Ferdinand of Brunswick defeated a French army there. Me: He's not my buddy, I just thought it was funny that mildred thought of him before Ferdinand... never mind. Fine.
"...the two kings in their respective camps celebrated the victory by having Te Deums sung" -- Also appreciated the note about how this was sung to celebrate victory! By both kings, natch. Don't know if this was intentional, but it sure did remind me of Fritz for obvious reasons.
That's it for Fritz-related hilariousness in the first half (and, idk, maybe for the whole thing, I'll check in once I'm finished), but a couple of random other comments:
After we leave Westphalia and the Bulgars, in Chapter 11, the Old Lady says: "I am in fact the daughter of Pope Urban the Tenth and the Princess of Palestrina." The footnote observes that Voltaire left a note behind on this passage, first published in 1829: "Note the extreme discretion of the author: hitherto there has never been a pope named Urban X; he avoided attributing a bastard to a named Pope. What circumspection! What an exquisite conscience!" I don't know which I think is funnier, the "exquisite conscience!" or the fact that Voltaire is saying all this about himself in third person.
Chapter 16: "How can you expect me to eat ham when I have killed the son of my lord the Baron, and am now condemned never to see the lovely Cunegonde for the rest of my life? Why should I drag out my miserable days, since I must exist far from her in the depths of despair and remorse? And what will the Journal de Trevoux say of all this?" I would have thought this was funny by itself, but the footnote says this is a journal published by the Jesuit order, founded in 1701 and consistently hostile to Voltaire. HEE.
Candide (first half)
I chose this one under the vague idea that "critical edition" was what I wanted, and also I read the sample and thought the footnotes were probably decent enough, whereas most other editions I tried in the five minutes I looked around had no footnotes. I don't know that I'm totally content with the notes now that I have them (they are sort of short) but they're actually not too bad for my uses, as I need them to explicate things I didn't know I was missing, and once I know I'm missing them I can go look them up or ask in salon :) It's the stuff I don't know I'm missing that bothers me...
I've read the first half so far and it turns out the first several chapters are relevant to our fandom :)
Chapter 2 - in which Candide gets recruited into the army of the Bulgars - "Voltaire chose this name to represent the Prussian troops of Frederick the Great because he wanted to make an insinuation of pedastry against both the soldiers and their master. Cf. French bougre, English "bugger."
LOLOLOLOL. This is the kind of thing I'm here for, footnotes! Also as always I think it is hilarious that Voltaire is so stuck on Fritz that he has to make fun of Fritz being gay, lol.
"Two men in blue took note of [Candide]... 'Aren't you five feet five inches tall?'" And the footnote attached to that: "Frederick had a passion for sorting out his soldiers by size; several of his regiments would accept only six-footers."
...surely... they are mixing up Fritz and FW?? But still, this is 5000% funnier now that I know the Fritz/FW connection (tall guys, while sad for the tall guys, is always going to be hilarious to me)
The impressing of Candide into the army of the Bulgars by two guys who accost him in a tavern reminds me a lot of Ulrich Bräker's memoirs that
Chapter 2/3: "The King of the Bulgars went to war with the King of the Abares." The footnote says here that this is a reference to the Seven Years' War and that "Allegorically, the Abares are the French, who opposed the Prussians in the conflict known to hindsight history as the Seven Years' War."
Me: The French?? Against the Prussians??
Footnote: Look, the Seven Years' War is complicated, okay? We are a footnote, we're not going to get all of this across in our allotted couple of lines. Check out the Battle of Minden, that's what he's referring to, it took place in Westphalia which is where Voltaire has set this bit.
Wikipedia: Yeah, your buddy Ferdinand of Brunswick defeated a French army there.
Me: He's not my buddy, I just thought it was funny that mildred thought of him before Ferdinand... never mind. Fine.
"...the two kings in their respective camps celebrated the victory by having Te Deums sung" -- Also appreciated the note about how this was sung to celebrate victory! By both kings, natch. Don't know if this was intentional, but it sure did remind me of Fritz for obvious reasons.
That's it for Fritz-related hilariousness in the first half (and, idk, maybe for the whole thing, I'll check in once I'm finished), but a couple of random other comments:
After we leave Westphalia and the Bulgars, in Chapter 11, the Old Lady says: "I am in fact the daughter of Pope Urban the Tenth and the Princess of Palestrina." The footnote observes that Voltaire left a note behind on this passage, first published in 1829: "Note the extreme discretion of the author: hitherto there has never been a pope named Urban X; he avoided attributing a bastard to a named Pope. What circumspection! What an exquisite conscience!" I don't know which I think is funnier, the "exquisite conscience!" or the fact that Voltaire is saying all this about himself in third person.
Chapter 16: "How can you expect me to eat ham when I have killed the son of my lord the Baron, and am now condemned never to see the lovely Cunegonde for the rest of my life? Why should I drag out my miserable days, since I must exist far from her in the depths of despair and remorse? And what will the Journal de Trevoux say of all this?" I would have thought this was funny by itself, but the footnote says this is a journal published by the Jesuit order, founded in 1701 and consistently hostile to Voltaire. HEE.