Disillusionment

Salman Rushdie puts Candide on the boat home with Martin, the most deeply disillusioned character in Voltaire's Candide, the man for whom hawks eat pigeons and always will. Then he asks a question he felt himself at this point: is Voltaire overdoing it? His answer is that exaggeration is the method, an earthquake kills a million, and that the argument Candide has with Martin on the ship is the argument you are having with the author.

Paris, when it comes, is the country Voltaire has kept out of the picture until now, and it comes off badly: con men, critics he is settling scores with, and a Candide who, having already killed, now betrays love and assumes an apology will cover it. Venice brings back the maid from the book's first pages, because nobody is disposed of quickly here, and introduces Pococurante, the milord who dismisses everything beautiful. Rushdie leaves you with his question: is such a man happy because he feels superior, or miserable because the world disgusts him?