Labels:bulletin board | reckoner | sky OCR: Zaaigou tesree Voltaire: A phi losophical tale Voltaire that traces the wanderings f well -educated young man Although the character Zadig is fortified by a thorough education, wisdom. and moderation, he is un able ta avoid devastating misfortune After he is nearly strangulated in Babylon, roasted alive in Basra. and im- paled by Buddhist sezuag ir Serendip Zadig is enslaved ir Egypt Finally an angel reveals his destiny This allegory indolent t high culture colliding with rude "lived" experi ence appealed ta the nineteenth-century rcraving for ad venture tales but Voltaire intended commentary on eighteenth-century Catholicism and its blind to dogma When Van Gogh read Zadig he identified with the story protagonist, whose torturous cirumst ances An ultima ately illuminated by truth deshnee p ...