Extract

We must cultivate our garden.

A young man is kicked out of the most beautiful castle in Westphalia and proceeds to be flogged, shipwrecked, and nearly killed in an earthquake, all while his tutor insists this is the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire published this novella in 1759, but its velocity conceals a fury directed at every system of thought that explains away suffering with philosophy. The satire crosses continents and catastrophes with the breathless logic of a nightmare dressed as farce. El Dorado appears and vanishes. Optimism survives every refutation until it becomes its own kind of madness. The famous closing instruction to cultivate our garden is not retreat but the only sane response to a universe that refuses to justify itself.