Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom (review)

Since the five-volume Voltaire en son temps by René Pomeau et al. was completed in 1994, the need has existed for a new English-language biography of the philosophe. Roger Pearson has filled that gap, brilliantly. His study, exploiting the Pomeau work and the most recent critical editions from the Voltaire Foundation, presents a panoramic view of Voltaire's life and works. The tone is set at once by the title and the mock-picaresque subtitles to each chapter (for instance, 'In which our hero ploughs a straight furrow and roots out infamy'): ironic-respectful, admiring but well short of idolatrous. Pearson writes with wit and panache, including many a modern take on a classical detail (for instance, 'Voltaire was a master of the balanced investment portfolio', p. 400). A wealth of information is provided, often generously surpassing the immediate confines of the subject. Family relationships are carefully detailed, as too the lives of actresses and/or lovers. Voltaire's financial transactions, at times bewilderingly complex, are conscientiously disentangled. A 'Dramatis Personae' most helpfully lists 150 names. This is supplemented by a six-page chronology of events in 'France, Europe and America 1643–1799', after which the author appends, in a further half-dozen pages, a marvellous picture of Paris in Voltaire's day. The overall view of Voltaire which emerges (not an original thinker, but a 'great and tireless communicator', pp. 507–08) does not radically change received ideas. Pearson faces the challenge that besets every Voltairean: does the philosophe still remain a figure for our times? Somewhat defensively admitting that his wit is, 'quite unlike the aphoristic one-liners of Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker' (p. 408; what about, for instance, 'Pour encourager les autres'?), he pays due homage to the 'lightness of his touch, the quickness of his mind . . . the urbane charm'. The tales, he concludes, have survived best. True doubtless (though only Candide reaches a general international public), but the Lettres philosophiques arguably have as much resonance as most of the contes, especially as its English version is now available in the Cronk edition. Besides, one must hope that the critical editions currently appearing from Oxford will rejuvenate interest in works long thought to have been outmoded, like the Dictionnaire philosophique or the Traité sur la tolérance, to name but two recent ventures.

Such a cornucopia inevitably lends itself the more susceptible to error. Lapses, however, such as misspellings or incorrect names and titles, are few. Mistakes too are uncommon, but Chatenay, Voltaire's birthplace, is not north of Paris (pp. 11, 40), nor is Anet east of the capital (p. 191). The Traité sur la tolérance does not end with the 'Prière à Dieu' (p. 289: some modern critics have thought it should, but John Renwick's edition sets the record straight; p. 95). Goldsmith's visit to Voltaire (p. 252) is problematical. Wagnière was not in Paris at Voltaire's death (p. 387), and corpus non gratus (p. 411) is bad Latin. Martin (in Candide) is characterized rather more cheerfully than many would agree. One wonders, speculatively, whether the liaison with Mme du Châtelet would have endured, as Pearson believes (p. 207). The deep depression (one of the lowest points in his whole life) suffered by Voltaire in 1748 suggests a dying relationship, as too on her side do the comments of resigned sadness in Mme du Châtelet's Discours sur le bonheur. However, these last points are quiddities. Nor should the rare blemishes detract from the achievement of this book, whose life of Voltaire will amply serve as authoritative for our present generation.