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I read this book a long time ago and this time I got more out of it but at the same time became more aware of its limitations. It doesn't develop character in a novelistic fashion but instead presents a series of episodes created to show how bad things are.
Certainly the book had passages of great satiric power reminiscent of Swift and like Swift these sections are still quite relevant. I refer to Voltaire's deeply misanthropic portrait of the corruption of society and the cruelty and inhumanity of war. His vision is essentially tragic. In the end there is little left but to endure.
More dated is his attack on the optimistic philosophical Deism of the Neoclassical writers. Few would agree with Alexander Pope's assessment that "Whatever is, is right." Thus a considerable amount of satiric bombardment is aimed at empty trenches. Still, Voltaire stands with Swift as one of the great satirists in European Literature.
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