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Title: Candide by Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire, John Butt ISBN: 0-14-044004-6 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: May, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (91 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Best of All Worlds
Comment: Voltaire's short 1759 lampoon of the fashionable feel-good philosophies then making the rounds of Europe continues to bring a smile. It's not a literary masterpiece, but a quick and funny satire. In style, it reads something like Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", but its humor is more pointed and its satire more trenchant.
Candide is an illegitimate boy expelled from his adoptive home for kissing the Baron's daughter. A simple and candid man, he resolutely adheres to his tutor's absurd theory that "all is for the best". In coming years, Candide and everyone he meets suffer tortures, rapes, slavery, and death. Yet Candide remains ever the silly optimist, chasing the Baron's daughter around the world and giving Voltaire space to vent against the happy feel-good philosophers with their buzzwords, tautological reasoning, and empty aphorisms. The tutor, for example, demonstrates the "necessity" of syphillus, as having brought chocolate to Europe though "it is to be observed that this malady is, like religious controversy, peculiar to our continent".
Candide is a quick satire, silly and contrived, but we can read it with pleasure 250 later, long after the targets of Voltaire's wit have faded away.
Rating: 4
Summary: Amusing in the best possible way
Comment: One of the most popular philosophical ideas in Europe during the eighteenth century was that of "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". It was the catch-phrase for Leibniz's argument that because god had created the world, everything was made to occur for the best because god's creations couldn't be evil. So even events that seem tragic and pointless are actually part of some larger, cosmically good plan that mere humans can't see. Therefore we should all accept our fate, and know that everything happens for the best, because we live in the best of all possible worlds.
Voltaire, a man who had twice been imprisoned in the Bastille and then exiled, thought this was a crock of you-know-what. Candide, subtitled Optimism, is his satirical response to this idea. Clearly humour was one of Voltaire's strong assets; Candide is quite funny. Many critics say that the characters aren't well developed, but I think that they're broadly drawn on purpose. I believe that one of the reasons Candide still works in our time is that we can identify the characters with people we know, and so we can follow their relationships and actions. For example, the old woman (who is never named) has seen what life has to offer, and cannot be surprised by anything anymore. I'm sure we all know at least one person like this. And Pangloss is basically a self-help guru, spouting out feel-good nonsense and getting paid a lot of money for his time. Candide is also somewhat short on dialog versus explication, but I didn't mind it.
However, the major drawback is that Candide was written in the eighteenth century, when the idea of the best possible world was so popular. Therefore the book is not an explanation and then rebuttal of it. Candide is only Voltaire's shout of disgust with it, and so the original idea is not addressed in any depth. In order to recover a large amount of the sarcasm, one would have to be fairly proficient in eighteenth-century philosophy.
Even with this weakness, I still found Candide a funny, enjoyable short read, and that Voltaire's basic ideas came through in the end.
Rating: 4
Summary: Edutainment, 18th century style
Comment: Candide is a short satirical work that questions if this world is indeed the best of all possible worlds, as 'Liebniz's disciples' believed. Their uncaring verdict on the loss of lives from the earthquake in Lisbon coupled with their arrogance and lack of tact in the time of suffering was fuel for Voltaire's fire.
The book is fairly short and can be read in one sitting; it is laugh out loud funny in some places as the most absurd things happen to the major characters. I read it mostly because I like satire and not to get any particular message out of it. The story is pretty straightforward and I guess it does raise a few questions in the readers mind about what our purpose in this life is, how to find happiness, contentment etc... but it can also be read for the pleasure of 'listening' to one of the wittiest men that has ever lived (or so they tell me).
I have not done justice to this book, and you can read longer reviews about it on this site, but I would advice you to read it yourself and then make up your mind. Get the Penguin edition.
Again, read this book! It's short, it's funny and it's by Voltaire, what other encouragement do you need?
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Title: Candide (Cliffs Notes) by Francois Marie Arouet, James K. Lowers ISBN: 0822002833 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 29 March, 1965 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli ISBN: 0553212788 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 August, 1984 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
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Title: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Martin Edward Malia ISBN: 0451527100 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ISBN: 0553212478 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 May, 1984 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: The Portable Voltaire by Fran-Cois Maria Arouet De Voltaire, Ray Voltaire, Francois-Marie De Voltaire, Ben R. Redman ISBN: 0140150412 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: July, 1977 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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