Talk:Zadig

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Fate v. Providence[edit]

I've read Zadig in Polish and English and I think it's a great novel; one of the best I've ever read. One thing I want to point at is, that the Power which the author refers to is Providence rather than Fate; the difference may be somewhat slight, however fate is more often sought as something that can't be defied with any means, while Providence is a kind of 'God's (or gods') care about human affairs' (aka Guardian Angel) concept. Critto

This is true, and "La Destinée" in the subtitle is often translated as "Providence," or at least "Destiny." Can anyone tell me what the source for "Book of Fate" is? It seems that "Zadig, or Destiny" or "Zadig, or Providence" would be better. (The latter is what my translation uses, though the former is a more literal translation while still maintaining the original meaning—destiny, at the time, meaning a fate decided by God.) Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 14:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Split paragraph[edit]

In particular, I'm speaking of this paragraph (links not included and citation removed):

"While wandering on the banks of the Euphrates, Zadig encounters a hermit reading 'the book of destinies'. Zadig makes a vow to accompany the hermit for the next few days on the condition that he won't abandon the hermit no matter what he does. The hermit claims that he will teach Zadig lessons in life; in one such incident, the pair go to an opulent castle and are treated generously. The lord of the castle gives each of them a gold piece before sending them off. After leaving, Zadig finds that the hermit has stolen the gold basin that the lord allowed them to wash in. Afterwards, they visit the house of a miser and are treated somewhat rudely by the servant and are pushed to leave, but the hermit gives the servant the two gold pieces from the lord and gives the miser the gold basin he stole. The aim, he tells Zadig, is that the hospitable man at the castle will learn not to be as ostentatious and vain, and the miser will learn how to treat guests. They then arrive at the simple home of a retired philosopher who welcomed the travelers in. The philosopher talks of the fight for the crown in Babylonia, revealing that he wished Zadig had fought for the crown not knowing that Zadig is one of his two guests. In the morning at dawn the hermit wakes Zadig to leave. To Zadig's horror, the hermit sets fire to the philosopher's home. In the last encounter, Zadig and the hermit stay with a widow and her young nephew. After their stay the boy accompanies the travelers to the bridge by the widow's orders. At the bridge the hermit asks the boy to come to him. He then throws the fourteen-year-old into the river drowning him, as he claims that Providence tells that he would have killed his aunt within a year, and Zadig within two. The hermit then reveals his true identity as the angel Jesrad, and opines that Zadig, out of all men, deserves to be best informed about Fate. Jesrad states that wickedness is necessary to maintain the order of the world and to ensure that good survives. Nothing happens by chance, according to the angel: Zadig happened upon the fisherman to save his life, for example. Zadig should be submissive to Fate, he continues, and should return to Babylonia, advice which he follows. (Surprisingly regarding Voltaire's hostility towards religions, this passage is based on one of the suras of the Quran (Sura 18 (Al-Kahf), v. 65–82), when Moses follows a mysterious character, endowed with great knowledge, through his journey.)"

I split the paragraph at the sentence beginning with "[i]n the last encounter", and noticed, while editing, that the paragraph was single-spaced just before the sentence where I split it. (Edit: I assume this means somebody else may have intended to split the paragraph there. My apologies if the previous sentence insults them. My further apologies if this came off as too obvious to anyone reading this.) Could anyone please tell me if this was the right edit? (Note: Quoted paragraph edited after posting to replace original quotation marks with apostrophes because of the added quotation marks around the entire paragraph. Further note: Replaced "non-added" with "original" in previous sentence, along with adding the rest of the sentence beginning with "because" in subsequent edit. Further note: I added the word "added", no pun intended, to the appended part of the first sentence of the edit note. Note: Forgot to add parenthesis at the end of a previous edit. Sorry, and also sorry for the annoying nature of my constant apologies. I have OCD. Further note: rephrased "[c]ould anyone please" sentence. Sorry yet again, especially since the apology about being annoying was made insincere by this one.)--Thylacine24 (talk) 00:56, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]