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Books Like Micromégas by Voltaire
Works that make the familiar strange by changing its scale
Voltaire's device is simple: if a visitor from Sirius looks at humanity through a diamond microscope, what do our theological disputes look like? These works share that same defamiliarization — they change the scale, the perspective, or the vantage point until the familiar becomes absurd.
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Buy on AmazonCandide
by Voltaire
The earthly counterpart — where Micromégas applies cosmic scale to human pretensions, Candide applies accumulated terrestrial catastrophe to philosophical optimism; reading both gives the full picture of Voltairean philosophical satire from the two poles of the cosmic and the picaresque
- 2Buy on Amazon
Zadig
by Voltaire
The Oriental counterpart — the Babylonian perspective defamiliarizes Europe as the Sirian perspective defamiliarizes humanity; the complete trilogy of Voltaire's philosophical defamiliarization methods: temporal (Zadig), terrestrial (Candide), cosmic (Micromégas)
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Buy on AmazonGulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
The direct model — Swift's Lilliput and Brobdingnag use scale changes as a satirical device; Voltaire extends the technique from the human to the interplanetary scale; reading Swift first shows exactly what Voltaire adapted and what he invented
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Buy on AmazonEntretiens sur la pluralité des mondes
by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
The scientific predecessor — Fontenelle's 1686 dialogue on inhabited worlds popularized the plurality of worlds concept; Voltaire's Micromégas is in direct dialogue with Fontenelle and uses the same astronomical framework for different satirical ends
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Buy on AmazonFlatland
by Edwin Abbott Abbott
The geometric defamiliarization — Abbott's 1884 tale of a two-dimensional world invaded by a sphere uses the same technique: change the dimensional framework and human pretensions to knowledge become visible as limited perspective; the Victorian mathematical Micromégas
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Buy on AmazonLe Petit Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The 20th-century French heir — the Little Prince visiting Earth from asteroid B-612 uses the same cosmic child's perspective to defamiliarize adult human seriousness; the descendant of Micromégas in the 20th-century French tradition
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Buy on AmazonSolaris
by Stanisław Lem
The 20th-century serious science fiction version — Lem's novel about an alien ocean that cannot be understood by human categories takes the Micromégas premise (the alien perspective that reveals human cognitive limits) to its most philosophically rigorous conclusion
- 8Buy on Amazon
Les Lettres philosophiques
by Voltaire
The English letters — Voltaire's celebration of Newton, Locke, and English tolerance that precedes Micromégas; the Newtonian astronomy that makes Micromégas's cosmic scale scientifically grounded comes from Voltaire's serious study of Newton's physics
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