Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom

Any French school boy or girl will remember Voltaire with Candide or Zadig, and will link the memory of the great man to the notion of human rights that he appears to embody and to his quick wit... These "little" aspects hide the complexity and richness of who Voltaire really was. Roger Pearson's biography is a must read for anyone studying the fascinating Century of Lights, whether from a political/historical, literary or philosophical perspective. It is also a beautifully written biography, almost like an action movie, when you love and hate the hero, and await impatiently his next adventure. A most enjoyable and informative read!

I was once asked the question, "If you could have lunch with one famous person, living or dead, who would it be?" My answer: Voltaire. Francois Marie Arouet, (1694-1778) who took the pen name "Voltaire" for reasons still unclear, (the author lists some guesses but doesn't choose one) was the 18th century itself, distilled into a frame so thin that it appeared as though a good stiff breeze could blow him away. But not only did he live to the age of 84, he also wrestled one of the most powerful institutions in history, the Catholic Church in France, virtually to a standstill. One of the most prolific writers of all time, he is said to have churned out a million words during his life: plays, essays, letters, poetry, satire. He never wrote a novel; novels were considered trashy entertainment in his day and he never cared to write one. He isn't read much anymore, not even in France, and he is remembered today not so much as a philosopher in his own right, but as a brilliant, witty popularizer of other people's ideas. But his razor-sharp French prose style was the envy of the young Rousseau, who ultimately went on to have an even greater and more profound impact on the world. What inflamed Voltaire's passion inflamed his need to write, and nothing did the trick more quickly than intolerance and injustice. Imprisoned more than once himself, Voltaire repeatedly put himself in jeopardy defending in print the victims of injustice and religious bigotry, a particular plague of his age, and launching one spirited attack after another on their tormentors, those in political and ecclesiastical power, which in 18th century France were pretty much two sides of the same coin. Small wonder I wanted to have lunch with him. And small wonder that Roger Pearson has given this delightful biography the subtitle "A Life In Pursuit Of Freedom." Each chapter has a title and a descriptive summary, in the style of an 18th century novel. In lively and witty prose, Pearson takes the reader from Voltaire's inauspicious beginnings (he was an illegimate child who was expected to die) to his first clashes with the authorities, (he spent close to a year in the Bastille when still only 23) his liaisons with one woman after another, the business dealings that made him wealthy, his sojourn in England, (where he found the relatively tolerant atmosphere refreshing enough to publish a series of "English Letters") his rocky relationship with Frederick the Great, and the whole cavalcade of one of history's most colorful and brilliant lives, leading right up to his retaking by storm, in the last days of his life, the very Paris from which he had been so often banned. As the decades running up to the French Revolution, which Voltaire helped start but didn't live to see, roll by, Pearson traces every parry-and-thrust of the life of a writer in an age and a society in which writers were closely watched and frequently harassed by the government, their works censored and sometimes burned,

Voltaire has been part of my life for nearly a quarter of a century, ever since I picked up a copy of The Portable Voltaire at a used bookshop near my high school for one dollar. I made the purchase at the suggestion of a pretty girl who I never did convince to go out with me. I guess that's not really relevant to anyone but me, except that Voltaire does write about how heartbreak (which is what that frustration seemed to be at the time) can be a stone on the path to enlightenment. Whether that disappointment and the many that followed inched me closer to real enlightenment over the years, I can't say. But one of the first times I ever remember feeling more enlightened than many of my peers was as it dawned on me that my familiarity with the 18th-century philosopher and writer was all but unheard of among South Floridians in their late teens (and even among most of their teachers). I must admit I've always been puzzled by Voltaire. Despite my long exposure to his work, I cannot identify a single component of his beliefs that I have adopted as part of my core philosophies. Only a couple of his lines have stuck in my memory over the years, and even upon re-reading it as an adult I found Voltaire's seminal work Candide a bit of a slog. Yet I continue to think of him as one of the most important factors in my intellectual formation, for reasons I assumed too vague or subtle to pinpoint. With an eye toward discovering why that is, I picked up a copy of Roger Pearson's new biography, Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom. Previous biographies I've seen were too academic or too technical to hold my attention for long. But after leafing through it, I had high hopes for Mr. Pearson's effort. I was not left unrewarded, even though I consider the biography only a mixed success. Mr. Pearson, I think, tries too hard to overcome the weakness of most academic biographers who produce informative but utterly boring works. He does this through the use of humor that is at first refreshing but quickly becomes irritating. I don't think this biography covers any significant new ground in Voltaire's life, but many of the stories I had read or heard in the past are retold here in a mostly readable way (at least when Mr. Pearson does not try to be witty). What is new is the way Mr. Pearson relates some of these anecdotes to what we know of Voltaire's iconoclastic beliefs. Take the fact that he refused to cover up that his birth in 1694 was the result of an illicit affair between his mother and an intellectual and songwriter called Rochebrune. While most people of his generation would seek to obscure such ignoble circumstances, Voltaire instead venerated his mother for preferring Rochebrune's "wit and intelligence" to the company of her attorney husband, who, Voltaire said, was "a very mediocre man." Similarly, his selection of the pen name Voltaire -- he was born François-Marie Arouet -- was his unusual way of escaping the wrath of French censors. He den

While the "Almighty" in the title goes against my grain given the book's freedom-loving, deist, and most human of subjects, this biography is well worth reading. Professor Davidson writes in a light style, which pays fond homage to that of this great figure of the Enlightenment. Another good book on Voltaire came out in 2004, "Voltaire in Exile" by Ian Davidson. If you want a full life biography, go with "Voltaire Almighty". If you are mainly just interested in Voltaire's later life and work in advancing human rights, go with Mr. Davidson's worthy effort. Or, read both and compare.

I have long been a fan of the writing and sayings of Voltaire. I have never understood why he isn't a better known figure here in America. His writings are as acerbically relevant today as when written, his portfolio of work is extensive and covers a wealth of genre's and he may be today's most sought after iconic figure-a confirmed French Anglophile. One of the problems might be that there are no truly accessible biographies on Voltaire that are either available in English or that span less than a few thousand pages. In Voltaire Almighty Roger Pearson provides a quick, informative, entertaining and very accessible-if not horribly titled-work. If there was one thing Voltaire was not it was almighty. Almost certainly an illegitimate child, Francois Marie Arouet all his life sought the power and grandeur of the noble classes he so effectively satirized in most of his works. As Pearson so eloquently points out, the distress that drove Voltaire was centered on his deep desire to belong to the noble classes while concomitantly strongly desiring that he truly not care about those folks. His personal history is in itself an improbable adventure story. He chose to flee to England after a brush with a French Noble. There he mingles with the highest levels of English intelligentsia and became an avid Anglophile. However, a run in with English authorities sent him back to France. There he fell in with a very mathematical crowd and the group determined a way to beat the lottery of the day. Before the authorities could close the game down, Voltaire and his fellow conspirators were rich. And so it goes. As personal stories go, Voltaire's is very compelling reading. And all of this doesn't even begin to touch his career as an actor, entertainer, dramatist, author and, apparently, raconteur extraordinaire. One can only hope that this book will provide a jumping off point for much more awareness of one of history's greatest literary geniuses and characters.