Damon's review
Voltaire Almighty by Roger Pearson
I picked up this book in Paris, figuring it would make some good airplane read. Well something else did, so I just finished it now.
Voltaire is the embodiment of the Enlightenment. In his lifetime he was the personification of the evils of reason without faith; and though he seems to be forgotten excepts as a post-modern punching bags, his expressed ideology keeps him in the same place. Thus we need to be reminded of who he was and what he said.
The best part of this book is that it focuses on his plays, which English speakers tend not to know anything about except one or two of their titles. Voltaire was mostly known during his lifetime as a play write and Pearson illustrates why this is so. Voltaire does lack many of the subtleties that we associate with Shakesphere, but since his goal was to express his heretical and treasonous ideas, subtlety is not called for. It is for his ideas that we now read him and in this Mighty Voltaire is lacking. His trip to England is covered in detai...more
Voltaire is the embodiment of the Enlightenment. In his lifetime he was the personification of the evils of reason without faith; and though he seems to be forgotten excepts as a post-modern punching bags, his expressed ideology keeps him in the same place. Thus we need to be reminded of who he was and what he said.
The best part of this book is that it focuses on his plays, which English speakers tend not to know anything about except one or two of their titles. Voltaire was mostly known during his lifetime as a play write and Pearson illustrates why this is so. Voltaire does lack many of the subtleties that we associate with Shakesphere, but since his goal was to express his heretical and treasonous ideas, subtlety is not called for. It is for his ideas that we now read him and in this Mighty Voltaire is lacking. His trip to England is covered in detai...more
