Why a Booktrail?
20/21C – Voltaire comes back to life in this heartwarming and imaginative comedy. Just what can a man of Enlightenment teach us in the modern age? And what can we teach him?
A Visit from Voltaire
What you need to know before your trail
Voltaire, one of the greatest minds of the eighteenth century certainly has chosen a funny old time to return to the world of the living. Well, that’s if it’s really him.But that’s what the visitor to an American mother of three tells her as he pays her a visit offering to cure her son’s asthma, her husband’s growing indifference, and her own resentment of life. He certainly looks the part – with his knee breeches and his rather funny wig.
Two character totally immersed in new environments – an American trying to adapt to a new life style and Voltaire adapting to the modern age.
What could possibly go wrong?
Travel Guide
Voltaire was a was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his support for the freedom of religion and expression and his attacks on the Catholic Church. He had many links to France too and you can visit the places he spent time in and visited – Voltaire’s France
From the moment he arrives in a small Swiss village, seemingly having travelled for a few hundred years, he comes to the aid of an American woman lost in a new and strange world. ( The narrator as author Mrs Kung herself)
This is an exciting premise for many reasons – how would a figure from the literary world cope if he or she returned to the modern age? What vestiges of life in the eighteenth century would they be able to leave behind and which ones would they bring with them?
What follows is an unusual friendship and both help each other in ways they could not have planned. The mix of Voltaire trying to figure out the modern world( the coffee machine in particular) and his advice coming from 18th century ideals is a nice mix. The moments where he berates the fact that his ideals are still being attacked now are poignant –
For the good of mankind -.”If a man has tyrants , he must dethrone them.”
“It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other.”
As the past and present mix, one moves towards enlightenment of the modern age whilst the other moves on from the past
And wherever you are, the 18th century, a small Swiss village or a home in Manhattan, certain things are true of al of us – we all have problems, many of which have bothered people for years such as money worries, feeling alone, trying to find your way in the world.
But certain things such as the kindness of strangers and friendship endures across the centuries.
Where Next?
