A Visit From Voltaire
Page 35
I notice that half way up the leafy glade, he slips on Peter’s sunglasses to protect his wrinkled eyes from the bright haze. Well, what’s a pair of Armani sunglasses between old friends?
The END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Inspiration from Voltaire’s spirit was substantially assisted by past and present Voltairean scholars. I hereby acknowledge my gratitude to the authors of these two works:
The Life of Voltaire, vol. I and II, James Parton, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1882
Voltaire, Georg Brandes, Tudor Publishing Company, New York, 1936 (especially useful on the mystery surrounding Adrienne Lecouvreur’s death, although the deductions are my own)
I am most grateful to the following authors and publishers for granting me permission to quote Voltaire directly or indirectly, or make reference to translations from their works:
Candide and Other Stories, Voltaire, The World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, translation Roger Pearson, 1998
Letters Concerning the English Nation, Voltaire, The World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, 1999
The Portable Voltaire, Penguin Books, 1977, edited by Ben Ray Redman, including: Candide, Micromégas, Zadig, L’Ingénue, The White Bull, The Philosophical Dictionary, and Miscellaneous letters
Thanks also to Simon and Schuster for permission to reproduce in part historical narrative related in:
The Age of Louis XIV, vol. VIII, Will Durant
The Age of Voltaire, Will and Ariel Durant, vol. IX
Rousseau and Revolution, Will and Ariel Durant, vol. X, from The Story of Civilization, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1961
Thanks to Sony Music Entertainment for permission to quote notes by Didier C. Deutsch accompanying:
Candide, book by Lillian Hellman, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Richard Wilbur, additional lyrics by John LaTouche and Dorothy Parker. Original Broadway Cast Recording 1956, Sony Broadway, Sony Music Entertainment Inc., reissued 1991.
With special thanks to M. Charles Wirz, director, and Madame Catherine Walser, librarian, Le Musée Voltaire, Les Délices, Geneva for their help in locating the following background reading:
Correspondance, Grimm, Diderot, Raynal, Meister, etc. vol. IX, Garnier Frères, Libraires-éditeurs, 1879
Épître CVIII
L’Orphelin de la Chine
Zaïre
Essai sur les Moeurs
The Works of Voltaire, A Contemporary Version, Dingwall-Rock Ltd., translations by William F. Fleming, 1927
Lettere d’Amore al Nipote, Sellerio edizione Palermo, 1993
On Tolerance on the Occasion of the Death of Jean Calas
Voltaire et la Chine, Meng Hua, Thèse de doctorat ès lettres, University of Paris, Sorbonne, 1988
The French Image of China Before and After Voltaire, by Basil Guy, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, vol. XXI
Also useful for background were:
The Age of Louis XIV, Voltaire, Everyman’s Library, Dutton, New York, translation Martyn P. Pollack, 1969
Voltaire and Enlightenment, The Great Philosophers, John Gray, Phoenix/Orion Publishing Group Ltd. 1998
Voltaire in Love, Nancy Mitford, Carroll and Graf, 1957
Madame de Pompadour, Nancy Mitford, Hamish Hamilton, 1954
‘Voltaire and Frederick the Great,’ from Books and Characters, French and English by Lytton Strachey, 1915, edited by Geoffrey Sauer
‘A Village Mobilizes To Save Voltaire’s House,’ by Marlise Simons, The New York Times, June 9, 1996
Voltaire à table, Christiane Mervaud, Éditions Desjonquères, 1998
Madame Voltaire, Gilbert Mercier, Éditions de Fallois, Paris, 2001
Larousse Gastronomique, Prosper Montagne, Crown, New York, 1966
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About the Author:
Küng became a novelist after twenty years of reporting from Asia, (primarily China and Hong Kong,) for the Economist, Business Week, The International Herald Tribune and National Public Radio.
Under the name D. L. Kung, her trilogy The Handover Mysteries was published in 2011 as e-books and paperbacks from Eyes and Ears Editions, Geneva.
Küng's signature in all her novels is an interweaving of East and West themes, placing domestic comedy or melodrama in a well-researched historical or political context. Her stories are informed by a Catholic upbringing and a sensitivity to cross-cultural tensions with an often sharp and mordant sense of humor.
Küng did her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Asian/Chinese studies and maintains a lively interest in Asian affairs. She’s a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City and in Geneva, an active advocate for Chinese writers in detention through PEN Centre Suisse Romand. She's a mother of three adult children and wife of a retired delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
AFTERWORD
The democracy activist Xu Wenli was released from prison by the Chinese government for health reasons on Christmas Eve, 2002. He and his wife joined their daughter Xu Jin in the US, where Xu took up a teaching post at Brown University in Rhode Island. He visited the author in 2006 in St-Cergue for an extended lunch in his honor with Geneva-based activists. At his behest, the author took up sponsorship under the Writers in Prison Committee of PEN Centre Suisse Romand of his imprisoned Democracy Wall colleague, He Depu, until Mr. He’s own release in January 2011.
The author’s husband retired from the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2004 and took up advocacy for the Geneva Initiative for Peace in the Middle East.
Despite their messy backpacks and foreign accents, all three children achieved ‘Baccalaureat Track’ in the Swiss state schools and continued their university education in Cambridge and London. Alexander also did obligatory Swiss military service. Theo outgrew his asthma to become a conductor as well as violinist. Eva-Marie, following in the footsteps of Émilie du Châtelet, took up science studies with a side interest in theater.
As of August 2011, Frisbee was still successfully defending the home base in St-Cergue from the invasion of feral cats, most of whom bear the distinctive spot of white chest fur marking descent from the slithering, wailing Thing in the Wall.
Monsieur Voltaire remains in spirit at his estate just across the border from Geneva in Ferney-Voltaire, France, always eager for visitors—and a good argument.