101 Letters to a Prime Minister by Yann Martel Read Free Book Online

coming with an open contempt for conventional values, landed like a bomb among the bourgeoisie. Françoise Sagan earned herself a papal denunciation, which she must have relished.
    A book can do that, capture a time and a spirit, be the expression of a broad yearning running through society. Read the book and you will understand not only the characters but the zeitgeist. Sometimes the book will be one a group strongly identifies with—for example,
On the Road
, by Jack Kerouac, among American youth—or, conversely, strongly identifies against—Salman Rushdie’s
The Satanic Verses
among some Muslims.
    So that too is what a book can be, a thermometer revealing a fever.
    Yours truly,
    Yann Martel
    F RANÇOISE S AGAN (1935–2004), born Françoise Quoirez, was a novelist, playwright and screenwriter. Sagan’s novels centre around disillusioned bourgeois characters (often teenagers) and primarily romantic themes; her work has been compared to that of J. D. Salinger. The writer François Mauriac described her as “a charming little monster.” Her oeuvre includes dozens of works for print and performance. She suffered a car accident in 1957, an experience that left her addicted to painkillers and other drugs for much of her life.

BOOK 7:

CANDIDE
BY VOLTAIRE
Translated from the French by John Butt
July
9, 2007
    To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
This witty book on evil,
From a Canadian writer,
With best wishes,
Yann Martel
    Dear Mr. Harper,
    You’ve no doubt heard the theory of six degrees of separation, how each one of us on this planet is connected to everyone else through a chain of five people. Well, in a way, you and I are linked through the seventh book I am sending you,
Candide
, by Voltaire. Let me explain. On pages 110 and 111 of Chapter XXIII there is a brief scene in which Candide, having just arrived in Portsmouth, England, witnesses the execution of a British admiral. “Why execute this admiral?” asks Candide.
    “Because he had not enough dead men to his credit,” comes the reply.
    This incident was no invention of Voltaire’s. There was indeed a British admiral who was executed for failing to “do his utmost” during a naval battle with the French off the island of Minorca. He was the first and only British admiral so treated by Britannia, and his name was John Byng.
    Do you recognize that last name? That’s right: Lord Byng of Vimy, of the “King-Byng Affair,” Governor General of Canada from 1921 to 1926, and a direct descendant of the ill-fated Admiral Byng. I’m sure you have regular meetings with Lord Byng’s current successor, Her Excellency Michaëlle Jean. And the last degree of separation: a direct descendant of both Byngs, Jamie Byng, is a good friend of mine and my British publisher. So there you have it, six degrees of separation: me-Voltaire-Byng-Byng-Byng-Jean-you.
    It’s in this same Chapter XXIII of
Candide
, in the paragraph just before Admiral Byng’s execution in fact, that Voltaire famously dismissed Canada as “a few acres of snow,” “quelques arpents de neige.” Isn’t that amazing? Voltaire speaks of Canada and then right after tells a story about a mutual acquaintance of ours. Mr. Harper, the link between us couldn’t be more preordained than that!
    One last anecdote. I can also say this of
Candide
: not once but twice I have come upon people reading a book, thought I recognized the title, exclaimed what a great novel it was, anticipating some good talk about the terrible, funny calamities that poor Candide must endure, only to be told by the readers, in both cases women, that the “e” was an “a” and that the book they were reading was not Voltaire’s brilliant satire but rather a book on candida, which is a bothersome, often recurring and terribly itchy yeast infection of the vagina. After that, as you can imagine, the conversation became a bit stilted.
    Let’s get to the point.
Candide
, published in 1759, is a short, funny and engaging tale