Candide

Written by - Voltaire

Narrated by Don Hagen

Candide, is a French satire written in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the finest satires ever written, this lively tale follows the absurdly melodramatic adventures of the youthful Candide, who is forced into the army, flogged, shipwrecked, betrayed, robbed, separated from his beloved Cunegonde, and tortured by the Inquisition. As Candide witnesses calamity, upon calamity, he becomes disillusioned and discovers that all is not always for the best.

Candide is characterized by its sarcastic tone, dark humor and erratic, fantastical, fast-moving plot. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers and romance.

Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. It was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïvete. Voltaire never admitted to having written the highly controversial Candide; instead, the work is signed Mister Doctor Ralph.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Sep 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9781596596719

- Voltaire

Imprisoned in the Bastille at the age of twenty-three for a criminal libel against the Regent of France, François-Marie Arouet was freed in 1718 with a new name, Voltaire, and the completed manuscript of his first play, Oedipe, which became a huge hit on the Paris stage in the same year. For the rest of his long and dangerously eventful life, this cadaverous genius shone with uninterrupted brilliance as one of the most famous men in the world. Revered, and occasionally reviled, in the royal courts of Europe, his literary outpourings and fearless campaigning against the medieval injustices of church and state in the midst of the ‘Enlightenment’ did much to trigger the French Revolution and to formulate the present notions of democracy. But above all, Voltaire was an observer of the human condition, and his masterpiece Candide stands out as an astonishing testament to his unequalled insight into the way we were and probably always will be.

Reviews for Candide

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Witty, easy to read, satirical, interesting. I shall have to dig more into context and such, to understand it fully, but I enjoyed it very much even without that. It's genuinely funny in itself, too, which is probably why it survives so well, even though satire is usually very much of its moment.

[therebelprince · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Juvenal once said, "It is difficult not to write satire", meaning that even if he put ink to paper with different intentions, his worldview would press him on in one direction. He and Voltaire would have got along famously, I suspect.

[quaintlittlehead · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Candide" reads like John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" with a sarcastic, funny twist. It is fast-paced in action, and I was not certain whether that meant I was better off running with the pace of the story (I did) or taking it slow and trying to grasp each element of the action in its fulness (I think I might have gotten lost, although that may be an approach for another read-through). At first I saw the book as a literary equivalent of "A Modest Proposal:" something clever and funny, but not about a problem that really affects the modern reader anymore, as this book is so clearly focussed on rebutting the philosophies of Leibniz, with whom I have only a passing acquaintance. However, I believe the themes of good and evil, free will and predeterminism, and how we should live in response to the world in which we find ourselves are ultimately universal enough that there is still something here to speak to us today, and while I feel as if the book in many ways goes against a lot of the philosophies I believe in, I enjoyed it just the same, which I think says a lot. Voltaire's pre-Revolutionary views on racial equality are also especially intriguing.The Barnes and Noble edition contains an introduction, a summary of the George Bernard Shaw and Leonard Bernstein adaptations of "Candide," a few excerpts from critics of different eras, and four questions to provoke further thought. The introduction is little more than a plot summary, and the criticism is not particularly insightful. The questions are okay for stimulating the casual reader to a little extra thought, but are not specific enough to be useful to teachers looking to analyse this book in depth. This is some of the least useful supplementary material I've seen in a Barnes and Noble edition, so my five stars go to the literary work itself, not this particular publication of it (although the footnotes and endnotes in the text are quite helpful). As an aside, I read this in the search for suitable literature for my 3rd year French class to read in either French or English. Even in English, I think this book would be far above their heads, so I would not suggest this for a high school setting where the object is to decode and comprehend written French. It's a plausible choice for an English literature class, but only if you're willing to spend the time on it. At the college level, however, this is definitely a worthy choice for an upper-division class in either language.

[schufman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very enjoyable, especially for a philosophical stint. Definitely a book I will want to read several times over to digest, but for an initial reading it was fairly light.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Zeker mooiste verhaal van Voltaire. Episodisch opgebouwd, maar met duidelijke lijn: de Bildung van Candide; ontluistering van het verhaal van Pangloss en tussendoor de traditionele stokpaardjes van Voltaire.

[jo1968_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Baron's lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration.One day when Cunegonde was walking near the castle, in a little wood which was called the Park, she observed Doctor Pangloss in the bushes, giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother's waiting-maid, a very pretty and docile brunette. Mademoiselle Cunegonde had a great inclination for science and watched breathlessly the reiterated experiments she witnessed; she observed clearly the Doctor's sufficient reason, the effects and the causes, and returned home very much excited, pensive, filled with the desire of learning, reflecting that she might be the sufficient reason of young Candide and he might be hers.Candide that he was a young metaphysician, extremely ignorant of the things of this world...Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.Pangloss made answer in these terms: "Oh, my dear Candide, you remember Paquette, that pretty wench who waited on our noble Baroness; in her arms I tasted the delights of paradise, which produced in me those hell torments with which you see me devoured; she was infected with them, she is perhaps dead of them. This present Paquette received of a learned Grey Friar, who had traced it to its source; he had had it of an old countess, who had received it from a cavalry captain, who owed it to a marchioness, who took it from a page, who had received it from a Jesuit, who when a novice had it in a direct line from one of the companions of Christopher Columbus. For my part I shall give it to nobody, I am dying."Our men defended themselves like the Pope's soldiers; they flung themselves upon their knees, and threw down their arms,"Oh! what a superior man," said Candide below his breath. "What a great genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him." "But is there not a pleasure," said Candide,[Pg 141] "in criticising everything, in pointing out faults where others see nothing but beauties?" "That is to say," replied Martin, "that there is some pleasure in having no pleasure."Instantly Candide sent for a Jew, to whom he sold for fifty thousand sequins a diamond worth a hundred thousand, though the fellow swore to him by Abraham that he could give him no more."I know also," said Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden." "You are right," said Pangloss, "for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle." "Let us work," said Martin, "without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable."

[yagamilight_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This major work by Voltaire is not quiet the way I imagined it. While I thought of a philosophical fictional story when buying the book, probably something comparable to Nietzsche's Zarathustra, it eventually turned out to be a very easy read with tons of humor in it. The story doesn't take itself seriously, it describes the very unlikely life of the noble Candide and his beloved princess who get around both worlds in a dystopian, sarcastically carried out way. On their way they get to know people whose lives are even more miserable then their own. One man they meet quiet a few times is a philosopher who has the opinion that everything in the world is perfect and nobody can complain. This philosophy of Optimism however seems to be the complete opposite of the countless miseries the protagonists run into. Although the philosopher does not want to reject his world view, it is quiet clear that he must be in error.I thought this book was both a good starting point for discussions about Optimism as well as an hilarious and easy read.

[leirali · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this for my World Lit II class. I wouldn't have read it otherwise. But am I glad I have this under my belt now? You bet. This was especially fun to read aloud. To my mother. Who hated every minute of it. Ha, ha. A lot of the satire went way over my head, even after class discussions. But I was still amused by all of the crazy ordeals that poor Candide was put through.

[Abdelrahman Mohamed · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In a nutshell, the three evils are; boredom, vice and poverty

[anniejanicki · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wish I knew what everyone sees in this one. I've known a few people who have claimed this as one of their favorite works, and to me, anyway, this book appears so slight when compared with other classical works. But then, allegory was never my favorite form of literature. I can completely understand Balzac, or Zola, or Flaubert. They were amazing writers, and you can get something new out of them with each reading, I think, depending upon what stage you are at in your own life. But it seems like there is a trend in French literature - the spare and esoteric work, the one that says, "this may not look like much, but it has Layers." I'm thinking especially of The Little Prince, this work, and possibly all of Camus. It may be very worthy. I'm sure the fault is mine here. But I just don't get it.

[eadieb-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a witty, satirical tale about the philosophical optimism that proclaims that all disaster and human suffering is part of a benevolent cosmic plan. Candide travels around the world to discover that contrary to the teachings of Dr. Pangloss, all is not always the best. I enjoyed it very much and found Voltaire's wit to be funny and intellectually enlightening.

[juva_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very charming little satire about a cheerful young boy raised in luxury and educated by a philosopher who espoused optimism. He taught young Candide that he lived in the best possible world and that all that occurs in life is for the best. Thereafter, Candide and his family are beset by a series of horrific tragedies, tortures, and unfortunate circumstances. Although such things would alarm and upset a normal man, Candide is confident that all these disasters are evidence that the world is operating as it should be.Although he often believes his teacher to have been killed, he usually turns up later to impart more wisdom and sermons about the perfect nature of the world. It is a silly story that made me smile, chuckle, and often laugh aloud. This sort of dark humor is just exactly my cup of tea. I didn't want it to end.

[jamesmscott-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

All is well? All is for the best, in this best of all worlds? Think again, says Voltaire, in this satirical, comical refutation of institutional dogma. Globe-hopping outlandishness. Easy to see how this beacon of enlightenment ran afoul of the ecclesiastical muckity mucks. This Penguin Deluxe edition includes a fine introduction and insightful endnotes. Also in the appendices: portions of his "Philosophical Dictionary" and the entire text of his poem, "The Lisbon Earthquake".

[jbgusa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this in my last year of high school. I had developed a taste for political satire. Clearly a classic.

[kslade-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

OK but not great.

[rab1953-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

What a horrific story! All of the central characters, and many others, suffer the most brutal cruelties from the first page, with only brief pauses to set up the next horror. While I do enjoy a good satire, this story made me want to quit reading. The story might have been more enjoyable to read if the storyline were more nuanced, but the point is fully evident within the first ten pages and, in stringing it out, Voltaire merely inflicts the pain on his readers as well as his characters. Piling one misery on top of another makes Voltaire’s view of the nature of the world inescapable and affirms that there is neither reason nor consolation in philosophy. The only chance of wisdom and security seems to lie in staying home and cultivating one’s garden, although even this is far from secure.Who would want to read a story of endless varieties of torture and misery if they did not lead to some outcome? This is like watching a horror movie with no resolution (and I’m not one who chooses to watch horror movies anyway). The satire might be justified if it took on a worthy target, but this storyline is not the true nature of the world. The philosophers Voltaire describes are thoughtless idiots, a false caricature that is not worth satirizing. And nor is Voltaire’s picture of the world any more realistic. While there is pain and misery in life for no purpose, most of us lead a good part of our lives in general comfort and even well-being. Even acknowledging the relative privilege I enjoy as a middle-class Canadian, I don’t think the people living in poverty or in underdeveloped countries or countries at war live lives of unrelenting pain.

[gpower61 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Candide zooms along with enormous picaresque energy. The events experienced by our wide-eyed hero are straight out of tomorrow’s news: war, earthquakes, tsunami, all human atrocities imaginable, persecution and pandemic.Candide is pretty much perfect in every aspect. The brutality and bleakness of its subject matter is expertly counterbalanced by the elegant insouciance of Voltaire’s authorial voice. The basic stylistic trick of the book, dealing with dark subject matter in a breezy manner, is much more difficult to pull off than it looks. Voltaire makes it look effortless. And, at little more than 100 pages, it doesn’t outstay its welcome. A wealth of wit, insight and action are packed into a very short space. The ending, with its metaphor of cultivating one’s own garden, is ambivalent and its possible meanings ferment in the mind long after reading it. Personally, I interpret it in an existentialist/anarchist sense rather than a conservative/pessimistic one of disengagement from participation in or concern for worldly events. I think Voltaire is advocating the necessity to question established philosophies and ideologies, make your own choices and take responsibility for your own life. Candide continues to be funny for the simple reason that it continues to be true. There will always be suffering and plenty of Panglossian’s determined to convince us that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds (Always Look on the Bright Side of Life would have made a very good subtitle, come to think of it). Voltaire’s anger at a perverted concept of optimism resulted in a timeless classic that speaks powerfully to the present and makes you think at the same time as it makes you laugh.

[jazz1987-395186 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Doctor Ralph's work was so bad I agree with Voltaire that he was trash.

However, I did like the story. Candide was indeed an optimistic character and the son from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", would fit perfectly with this novella. I felt bad for Cunégonde and the Old Woman but kept an optimistic view on it. Pangloss, Cacambo, and Martin were all good characters as well. As for the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronck, I'm still confused about him in the end.

[dele2451 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

How droll.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable."Candide is Voltaire's most popular philosophical novella, first published in 1759.Candide is a good-natured, illegitimate nephew of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh who lives in his uncle's castle in Westphalia, Germany. There Candide is taught the philosophy of Optimism – that a world overseen by a benevolent God, is the best of all possible worlds and all is ultimately for the best-by his tutor Pangloss.However, when Candide is caught in a moment of intimacy with the Baron's daughter, Cunegonde, Candide is thrown out of the castle. Candide, though, is unfazed by his expulsion, imbued as he is with Optimism. He is content to accept whatever life throws at him and finds himself recruited into the Prussian army and is exposed to the horrors of war."Never was anything so gallant, so well accoutred, so dashing and so well drilled as those two armies. Trumpets, Fifes, hautboys, drums and canon produced a harmony such as was never heard in hell. First the canon toppled about six thousand men on either side; then the muskets removed from the best of all possible worlds between nine and ten thousand scoundrels who were infesting its surface. Next the bayonet proved sufficient reason for the death of a few thousand more. The total may well have amounted to thirty thousand corpses. Candide trembled like a philosopher, and concealed himself as best he could for the duration of this heroic butchery."So begins a series of disastrous misadventures which sees him visit most of Europe and South America including the Utopian city of El Dorado. As travels he experiences more and more catastrophes whilst moments of good fortune are short-lived. The people he meets along the way also have their own tales of hardship. Candide comes close to shedding his faith in Optimism but faced with the alternatives continues to cling to it. ‘If this is the best of all possible worlds, what must the others be like!’Candide and his followers for a while set up home in a quiet rural cottage where they manage to find a tolerable existence. Each member of the household hones a skill with which they can contribute to them all finding happiness. However, Candide in particular, soon bores of this way of life and departs in search of further adventure. With this book Voltaire is attempting to satirise and attack the notion of Optimism, Candide’s journey from catastrophe to catastrophe, both natural and man-made, make a mockery of the philosophy. Voltaire was one of the most influential thinkers of the time. Here he seems to suggest that only by practical action can human suffering be eliminated but withdrawing from the world instead of engaging with it will only give short term relief as previous experiences are a reminder that misery still reigns elsewhere in the world. This idea still seems to have a ring of truth about it today in a world where protectionism and self-isolation of nations seems to be on the rise."Judge a man by his questions rather his answers."However, although I rather enjoyed the writing, in particular the humour in the later chapters, I didn't get as much out of it as I perhaps should have and feel that it's relevance has diminished with time.

[charon07 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Funny and satirical. What I should have read instead of trying to read Gulliver's Travels.

[jscape2000 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have a friend who loves this book, and particularly loves teaching it. Now that I've read it, maybe he'll explain what it is I'm missing...

[dhmontgomery-265379 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've been making occasional jokes based on a cursory understanding of "All is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds" for a few years now, and finally figured I should get around to actually reading this. I wasn't disappointed! I laughed out loud three pages in and enjoyed it throughout. A breezy read written with sparkling wit — albeit super rapey. My edition also came with a helpful introduction that provided a lot more context, though I'd have appreciated an annotated edition or afterword to explain more of the 18th Century references.

[pgchuis · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Read in preparation for an Open University course.I really didn't enjoy this. Voltaire is satirizing a philosophical position I don't think anyone really holds these days, as well as scoring points off his seemingly multitudinous enemies and critics by putting them in the story. The story itself is fanatical and absurd, and the tone is very much on the one note. Excruciating, but mercifully short.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A young, naive man, named Candide, lives a sheltered life of luxury until he's kicked out of his home. The plot follows his extensive travels and mishaps around the world. He meets dozens of people with strange stories of loosing fortunes, being persecuted, loosing loved ones, etc. Each person has a unique worldview, some optimistic, some pessimistic or realistic, each affects the way Candide sees the world. His one goal is to find and marry his love, Cunégonde, from whom he keeps getting separated. One of the big issues explored in this satire is the role money plays in finding happiness. The story is told almost like a parable, a simpleton learning about the world through others stories. Some of the stories are truly strange, but prove their point. Voltaire writes in a way that's clearly a thinly veiled social critique, but he does it without preaching at the reader. Candide is a must read. It has affected so many books written since then and it's points still ring true more than two centuries later.

[meaqhan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a fine short novel. I don’t necessarily agree with the philosophy Voltaire is advocating through it, but I found the petty references to his critics and detractors amusing.

[comfypants · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

A man with a naive philosophy faces a series of tragedies around the world.1/4 (Bad).It's all bitter, derisive "wit" that reads like a summary of a novel. I don't understand what any modern reader would get out of this.

[smichaelwilson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Candide, one of Voltaire's most popular works, is a sociopolitical satire in which the author uses the misadventures of the book's titular hero to argue against the philosophy of Leibnizian optimism. The gullible and naive Candide suffers through repeated misfortunes, often inspired by real historic events (Seven Years' War, Lisbon Earthquake), organizations (Jesuit Order, Portuguese Inquisition), individuals (Admiral John Bying, Abbe Trublet), and even the mythical land of El Dorado. This novella is bildungsroman coming-of-age narrative, and while many people compare it to Gulliver's Travels due to the scope and variety of Candide's travels, I was personally reminded of Samuel the Speaker by Upton Sinclair, which also features a young man whose world philosophy is constantly contradicted by the world itself. The Personally, my favorite companion of Candide's is the Manichaean scholar Martin, whose level-headed pessimistic view of mankind as a world full of idiots drives his frequent recommendations of throwing people out of windows and into oceans.Candide is fast-based and unrelenting, an epic journey in novella form full of black humor and theological debate as it tackles the concept of good versus evil and the nature of mankind.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very famous novel, it is, first published in 1759. I remember only a small number of incidents but they have stuck after a half century, so...I'll call it a good book about human behaviour. I believe I read this in French...but I could have been doing a reread after doing it in English translation first.

[xiaomarlo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hilarious! Ever since reading The Baroque Cycle (or at least the first two books and the first half of the third one) I've loved this historical period, and it's clear Stephenson wrote it with Candide in mind. It's silly, clever, and risqué, and you can read it in an afternoon.