Rupert Owen reviewed Micromégas by Voltaire
Review of 'Micromégas' on 'GoodReads'
4 stars
My edition of Micromegas features several other stories as well, including The Travels of Scarmmentado, The Princess of Babylon, and The White and the Black. However, I will therefore restrict this brief review solely to Micromegas, although I recommend you hunt down the other short stories as they too are immensely pleasing. The question of size in Micromegas is almost immeasurable yet specifics of scale are given throughout the story, I found the enormity of Micromegas the Silurian and the Saturnian dwarf to be inconceivably difficult to imagine as they bounded from one planet to another, to seek out the infinitesimal and determine whether such minuteness could fathom having a soul and what possibly a soul might be exactly. The structure of the tale is certainly otherworldly, the force behind the the magnitude of the visitors is not explained yet they exist in our solar system, particularly in what Voltaire …
My edition of Micromegas features several other stories as well, including The Travels of Scarmmentado, The Princess of Babylon, and The White and the Black. However, I will therefore restrict this brief review solely to Micromegas, although I recommend you hunt down the other short stories as they too are immensely pleasing. The question of size in Micromegas is almost immeasurable yet specifics of scale are given throughout the story, I found the enormity of Micromegas the Silurian and the Saturnian dwarf to be inconceivably difficult to imagine as they bounded from one planet to another, to seek out the infinitesimal and determine whether such minuteness could fathom having a soul and what possibly a soul might be exactly. The structure of the tale is certainly otherworldly, the force behind the the magnitude of the visitors is not explained yet they exist in our solar system, particularly in what Voltaire conjures up as two extraterrestrial beings journeying through space.
It is a pleasing tale that is thrust with Arouet's wit which carries it along, like all the Voltaire I have read he has the remarkable ability to simplify complex notions and bind them into fantastic tales, ripe for afterthought.
