Candide

By - Voltaire

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A classic work of eighteenth century literature, Candide is Voltaire’s fast-paced novella of struggle and adventure that used satire as a form of social critique. Candide enlists the help of his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, to help him reunite with his estranged lover, Lady Cunegonde. But the journey welcomes many unexpected challenges, and overcoming or outwitting the dangers of the world shall be their greatest task.

Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author’s personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Jul 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781451685596

- 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.

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Candide

Voltaire

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Candide, by Voltaire, Simon & Schuster

INTRODUCTION

Candide: The Tragedy of Optimism and the Power of Cabbages

Voltaire’s Candide is the story of a naive young man devoted to the philosophy that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Cast out from the supposed terrestrial heaven of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh’s court in dreary Westphalia, Candide wanders the globe encountering greed, violence, betrayal, bad weather, earthquakes, and all manner of disappointment. In the process, he innocently reveals the hypocrisy and cruelty behind the institutions and philosophies of Voltaire’s day in a series of hilarious scenes whose rapid-fire verbal wit and fantastical images have become a permanent part of Western culture.

Candide is short, but it is not small. Its brevity is the soul of its comedy—so much horror so quickly and clearly communicated makes the reader giddy with truth. Indeed, Voltaire’s laughter produces a sense of vertigo in many of his readers that can easily give way to nausea: When one has laughed at the church, the state, war, slavery, torture, rape, colonialism, cannibalism, bestiality, sex, love, God, and the presence of evil in the universe, can there be anywhere left to stand? Candide gives his own, famous answer to this question—basically, that we should all busy ourselves in tending to our cabbage gardens—but many readers have remained puzzled by it, and the meaning of the book’s ending is still debated by Voltaire scholars and casual Candide fans alike.

Voltaire’s little story has always had, and continues to have, many fans. Upon its publication in 1759, rulers in Geneva, Paris, and the Vatican banned and burned it, but the thousands of copies that had been smuggled out to the rest of Europe sold extremely well. It continues to be read by everyone from students to heads of state. Today, it is celebrated as one of Voltaire’s finest works—a magic moment in literary history when, as scholar J. G. Weightman has pointed out, Voltaire’s clear-sighted pessimism and despair combined with his almost frenzied zest for life. Its tonic effect refreshes world-weary readers and awakens innocent ones. Trailing in its lightning-quick reversals, we both face reality and escape it for a little while.

The Life and Work of Voltaire

The breadth and pace of Voltaire’s life is difficult to comprehend, let alone summarize. He was, in many ways, the embodiment of his age. His thousands of friends included kings and empresses. His enemies were equal in number and variety. He knew most of the important intellects and artists of his age intimately and wrote hundreds of works in every genre. His collected letters alone occupy more than one hundred large volumes. By his death, Voltaire was celebrated throughout the Western world.

He was born François Marie Arouet in Paris on November 1, 1694, the fifth child of his prosperous parents, François Arouet and Marie Marguerite Dumart. His mother died when he was seven, but continued to influence Voltaire’s life through her friend, the Abbé de Châteauneuf, who tutored him and introduced him to Parisian society by the time he reached his teens.

After Voltaire left his Jesuit school at seventeen, his father (whose patrimony Voltaire questioned) tried repeatedly to settle his literary son in a respectable profession. Voltaire worked briefly in a lawyer’s office, but soon embroiled himself in a society dispute with several libelous poems. M. Arouet sent him to the countryside for a year to keep him out of trouble, but, as he would throughout his life, Voltaire soon returned to the fray. In 1716, after penning a satire on the regent that portrayed him (accurately, it seems) sleeping with his own daughter, Voltaire was exiled from Paris for a year. Upon his return, he was rewarded for his new satire on the French government with an eleven-month stay in the Bastille prison. There he wrote Oedipe, the first of many hit plays, began his epic historical poem, the Henriade, and renamed himself Voltaire.

Voltaire’s reputation as a writer, wit, and provocateur continued to grow over the next few years, to his father’s displeasure. When M. Arouet died in 1722, his will prevented Voltaire from collecting even the interest on his inheritance for many years, but Voltaire remained undaunted. In 1726, he was exiled yet again for insulting a powerful French nobleman and departed for England for three years, one of the most important periods of his life. In London, he saw an intellectual world unshackled by the Catholic Church, where writers could become statesmen and science flourished. He studied the philosophy of John Locke and the scientific theories of Isaac Newton, dazzled the English with his talent, and made a series of successful financial investments. His solid monetary footing helped him convince the executor of his father’s will to release his inheritance.

By thirty-six, Voltaire was rich, successful, and famous, but his security did not keep him out of trouble. His collection of essays praising England (Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais) was interpreted, more or less correctly, as an attack on the French church and state. The book was banned, burned, its author’s lodgings searched, and a warrant issued for Voltaire’s arrest. Luckily, he had been warned in advance and was comfortably sequestered with his mistress, the Marquise du Châtelet, at her home in eastern France. He lived with his beloved Emilie (her broad-minded husband was also in residence from time to time), who matched wits with him at every level for the next fifteen years. When she died in 1749, he was devastated. It is not a mistress I have lost, he wrote to a friend, but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made.

Bereft of home and friend, Voltaire accepted one of the king of Prussia’s repeated invitations to join him in Potsdam. Frederick II prided himself on his intellectual and artistic taste and achievements, and Voltaire was initially impressed with his court. However, the king’s imperious nature soon emerged and gradually made life unbearable for the Frenchman. In 1753, Voltaire left Potsdam and lived in a series of towns along the French-Swiss border until settling on Ferney, the name of the estate where he would spend the rest of his days in comfort, visited regularly by the most prominent members of European society. During this period, Voltaire published dozens of works, among them some of his best-remembered, including Candide and the Dictionnaire philosophique. He also continued his regular embroilments in political and social scandals.

At the age of eighty-three, Voltaire finally returned to Paris, where he received a hero’s welcome. In a matter of months he finished writing and then produced two new plays while keeping dozens of social engagements. Triumphant but exhausted, he died on May 30, 1778, setting off his final scandal by refusing absolution. Fearful of what might become of his corpse, however, Voltaire requested burial in sacred ground. To foil the church, which mandated that all people buried in sacred ground must have received absolution, Voltaire’s body was dressed, placed upright in a carriage, and smuggled to the abbey of Scellières, where it was buried in the nick of time—just before the church issued an official statement forbidding it. The body was later moved to Paris, but was stolen in 1814, a crime undiscovered for fifty years.

Historical and Literary Context

The Enlightenment: Revolution and Repression

Voltaire lived in the midst of a tumultuous revolution of ideas that deeply threatened the religious and governmental authorities of Europe. By the time he began to write, the earlier revolutions of Galileo, who lent solid support to Nicolaus Copernicus’s assertion that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, and Martin Luther, who had sparked the great schism in the Catholic Church, had begun to have their full effect. Scientist Isaac Newton and philosopher John Locke had outlined shockingly new ways of learning about the world and people, suggesting that one could systematically explore and know both, without denying the presence of God. This vibrant interest in exploring the mysteries of the world and questioning old ways of thought did not please Europe’s royalty or religious leaders, who relied on old ways of thought to maintain their power and feared (rightly, it turned out) that the bright light of empirical investigation would erode their authority. Voltaire’s motto Écrasez l’infâme! has been interpreted many ways, but at its base it was an expression of his deep empathy with this new spirit of Enlightenment, and a desire to wipe out (écrasez/crush) all the hidebound superstitions (l’infâme) that stood in its way.

On the one hand, the Enlightenment’s new ideas sparked a passion for knowledge, debate, and novelty in both scholarly and courtly circles. The regent Orléans ushered in a brief era of sexual and philosophical license between the reigns of King Louis XIV and King Louis XV. French philosopher Denis Diderot, cheered on by Voltaire and others, led an effort to systematize all available knowledge in the first edition of the French Encyclopédie. Even King Frederick II of Prussia attempted a cultural revolution in his military state. On the other hand, Enlightenment impulses provoked harsh remonstrances from the worlds they threatened to wholly demolish. Upon ascending the throne, Louis XV introduced strict censorship laws. The Catholic Inquisition, a permanent part of the Church since the medieval ages, had reached its bloody apogee during the Renaissance, but still, as Voltaire depicts in Candide, regularly tortured suspected heretics and executed them in spectacularly public ways, including burning them alive. Europe was ravaged by a series of seemingly endless military conflicts, even taking the fight overseas to the exploited colonies of the Americas. Everywhere Voltaire looked, the fresh new perspectives offered by the scientists and philosophers whose work he admired were counteracted by treachery, superstition, and stupid waste of human life. Even God himself, who could once be counted on as an active, if not always benevolent, party, seemed increasingly distant and disinterested—a clockmaker, to use the most common metaphor employed by the Deists (of whom Voltaire was one) to explain their system of faith, who had wound up the will and fate of the world and now merely watched it run. Such was the world into which Voltaire introduced the innocent Candide.

Optimism, the Lisbon Earthquake, and the Seven Years’ War

The system of philosophical thought that Candide engages most directly is Optimism, particularly as it was expressed by German philosopher G. W. von Leibniz’s treatise Theodicée (1710), Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man (1733), and most particularly, philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau’s letter on providence, written in response to the great Lisbon earthquake. At its simplest and least sophisticated, Optimism posited that since God was all-knowing and all-powerful, and nothing in the universe could exist without his permission or knowledge, evil could not exist. To believe in evil, Optimists argued, was to believe in a power beyond God’s control. Events that suggested the presence of evil, it followed, simply indicated the limits of man’s understanding. As Pope puts it at the end of his Essay, whatever is, is right. Or, in the exaggerated phrase Voltaire attributes to Leibniz in Candide, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

The Lisbon earthquake, which killed tens of thousands of people, took place on All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1755. The event and its aftermath were horrific enough to give even the Optimisits pause. The Catholic government interpreted the disaster as divine judgment and responded with a gruesome series of public executions. Eighteen days later, another earthquake leveled the city. The human reaction to the earthquake tested Voltaire’s tolerance for Optimism as much as the earthquake itself. He felt its determinism encouraged the fatal resignation displayed in Lisbon. When Rousseau responded to the tragedy by writing, essentially, that so many people had died because they lived in the man-made environment of the city instead of the countryside, which was designed by God, Voltaire was furious.

The death toll of the Seven Years’ War, a multinational conflict that expressed itself in a series of bloody but inconclusive battles ranging over Europe and the Americas, similarly affected Voltaire’s disdain for Optimism. Here was clearly a mess that men had gotten themselves into and that served no one, not even the national leaders who had propagated it. To attribute good to this travesty instead of acting

Reviews for Candide

[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.

[gazzy_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Classic modern fable exploring the once popular philosophy of 'everything now is exactly as it should be and for the best' with comedic results.

[terrapinjetta_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely hilarious, and extremely easy to read as well.

[wenestvedt_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I saw this at the Guthrie Theater in the late 80s and it was great; the story still holds up.

[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.

[signature103 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very funny. Cynical. This edition was a please to read. Not great realistic storytelling but that wasn't the point of it, now was it.

[hereandthere_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For most of my life I have been quoting and cracking wise: "All is for the best in this most perfect of all perfect worlds", a statement whose essential truth is its irony. But until now I'd never read Voltaire's Candide, the source for Dr. Pangloss' sincerely delivered (by the character) but ironically presented (by the author) wisdom. And I'd never known just how vast a survey of 18th century cruelty Voltaire conducted while expressing his ironic untruth and rebutting it.

There are many lovely surprises in this 1759 philosophical romance. The first is the delightful entry it give us into the world of the 18th century itself - its fantasies, politics, stereotypes and lusts. We experience empire in the old and new worlds, common prejudices, and the tapestry of mid-18th century European and American political and social realities. We get a little tour of Voltaire's known world, and an imaginary depiction of the New World too.

Second, Voltaire writes of an age of astonishing brutality - rape, torture, stabbings, auto de fe - the bodies and the suffering are piled as high in this book as any tale of a Soviet Gulag or the Holocaust. An age so experienced understandably raised the most profound questions of good and evil.

Third, this book is delightfully sexual, not in a modern pornographic sense, but in an inimitably 18th century way. It reminds us that lust as much as love is a universal human experience, across the ages. Yet, in the 18th century as portrayed by Voltaire sex is a cruel mistress and master. It has its delights... but the images of punishment for sexual transgressions and of whoredom, disease, rape and the cruelty of lost female beauty are presented unflinchingly. This is the sexual world as it was, and it too is a world of violence and loss.

This is also a romance, that both mocks affection and yet depends upon it, sees its absurdity and yet valorizes it. Candide's love for Cunegonde is basically ridiculous, as is Candide himself and as is the philosopher Pangloss for whom he professes admiration. Yet it is the ground of his being as a character, and drives the whole story forward. He is a romantic fool. In the end, Martin and a humble Turk farmer, provide the answer to Candide and Pangloss's insipid optimism, as illustrated in the quotes below. But I'm not sure that Voltaire completely repudiates Candide's love for Cunegonde.

This is a comedy on many levels. Candide's endless ability to find new money, to land on his feet, to acquire new traveling companions, are all so silly that they hardly need to be remarked upon. The silliness is just good fun, creating situations in which Voltaire explores ideas against the background of evil and cruelty.

It is also of course, specifically, a sex comedy, using the readers prurient interest in matters connubial and concupiscencial to discuss deep philosophical questions. It is reassuring that sex sells, and has been selling since at least the mid-18th century. But is there some deeper connection between sex and the meaning of life, sex and optimism, sex and pessimism, that is plumbed here?

I was moved to think of Kohelet's (Ecclesiastes') questions after I put this down. To what extent are Candide's and King Solomon's wisdom aligned? "The end of the matter, everything having been heard, fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the entire man." This is essentially a Jewish version of "labor in your garden", the garden at issue being the garden of mitzvot, n'est-ce pas? At the very least we can say that both share an attitude of age ripened wisdom, and a certain rejoicing in a clarifying pessimism.

There is however a curious meta-Panglossian sense that in the author's hands, nothing can go wrong, no dungeon will be unescaped, no death will be permanent, and all will ultimately be for the best. And in the end, Candide and his companions are safely delivered, together with the reader, to the wisdom of working the garden.



Notable Quotable

"'Tis demonstrated," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise; for, since everything is made for an end, everything is necessarily for the best end. Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visible instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all the year round; consequently, those who have asserted that all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that it is for the best."

~

"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."

~

"You are very hard," said Candide. "That's because I have lived, " said Martin.

~

"Music nowadays is merely the art of executing difficulties and in the end that which is only difficult ceases to please." (Pococurante)

~

"Oh! what a superior man!" said Candide under his breath "What a great genius this Pococurante is! Nothing can please him."

~

"I should like to know which is worse... to endure all the miseries through which we have passed, or to remain here doing nothing?" (The Old Woman)

~

"... Martin especially concluded that man was born to live in the convulsions of distress or in the lethargy of boredom. Candide did not agree, but he asserted nothing. Pangloss confessed that he and always suffered horribly; but , having once maintained that everything was for the best, he had continued to maintain it without believing it."

~

"I have only twenty acres, " replied the Turk. "I cultivate them with my children; and work keeps at bay three great villains: boredom, vice and need."

~

"Let us work without arguing, said Martin; "'tis the only way to make life endurable."

~

Said the widow:

"I have been a hundred times upon the point of killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a burden of which we wish to be eased? to detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? In a word, to caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?"

[booksfordinner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The great master of satire. The thing I love about Voltaire is that he just honestly couldn't help himself. He was wealthy and liked, and he just couldn't stop from commenting in a not particularly nice way about the people and events of the day.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting satire - wonderful narration.

[varwenea · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Without context, this book reads like a series of unfortunate events. (Hey – that’s another book! Haw haw.) With context, this brilliant little book is a biting satire where Voltaire spared no opportunity to poke fun at every thought and event that he found wrong with society in the 1700’s. Voltaire challenged the idea endemic in his days, that ‘all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’. Back of book: “It was the indifferent shrug and callous inertia that this ‘optimism’ concealed which so angered Voltaire, who found the ‘all for the best’ approach a patently inadequate response to suffering, to natural disasters – such as a the recent earthquakes in Lima and Lisbon – not to mention the questions of illness and man-made war.” Voltaire was 64 years old when he wrote Candide in 1758. He was internationally recognized as a satiric genius, which also meant the government is none too pleased with him, resulting in two stays in the Bastille, flogging, and exile. Fun stuff for being a genius – yikes!In the book, Voltaire takes us through a journey of pain and suffering, coping and recovering, or simply death in many cases. Murder, rape, butchering, imprisonment, forcibly drafted into army, beatings, hanging, earthquake, drowning, slavery, prostitution, cannibalism, swindles, dethroned kings, living with false smiles, forced into priesthood, and much more. At times, Candide pauses and wonders if ‘All is for the best’ is a logical view. I can’t decide if I would characterize Candide as being naïve in addition to being kind. The latter he definitely is, never hesitating to share his fortunes, however few it may be at times. For the sake of completeness, I will slap him once, for his callousness when he no longer wished to marry Cunegonde because she has become ugly. :P The ending, its simplicity, is satisfying. It mirrors quite a bit to life – less talking, more doing – something I find myself saying too.Having seen Candide, the operetta, and by chance, was at the New York Public Library (Main) when they had a special exhibit of Voltaire’s original manuscripts, I wonder what took me so long to pick up the book. As an aside, the earthquake of Lisbon is readily the event that altered the course of the country’s history, ending its naval powers, sending its monarchy to the mountains (literally), and left the country behind its neighbors throughout history. Its downtown, wharf area is still sparse to this day. It’s pretty amazing that Voltaire saw through the B.S. then. Quotes – illustrating the powers of Voltaire’s words – witty, sharp, dripping with sarcasm, dipped with duality:Re: Sex – The ‘innocent’ Cunegonde seeing the action. The roundabout verbiage is immensely hilarious.“One day Cunegonde was walking near the house in a little coppice, called ‘the park’, when she saw Dr. Pangloss behind some bushes giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother’s waiting-woman, a pretty little brunette who seems eminently teachable. Since Lady Cunegonde took a great interest in science, she watched the experiments being repeated with breathless fascination. She saw clearly the Doctor’s ‘sufficient reason’, and took note of cause and effect. Then, in a disturbed and thoughtful state of mind, she returned home filled with a desire for learning, and fancied that she could reason equally well with young Candide and he with her.” Re: Man-Made War – Eloquently compared to hell, and note the last two words– ‘heroic butchery’, Chapter 3.“Those who have never seen two well-trained armies drawn up for battle, can have no idea of the beauty and brilliance of the display. Bugles, fifes, oboes, drums, and salvoes of artillery produced such a harmony as Hell itself could not rival. The opening barrage destroyed about six thousand men on each side. Rifle-fire which followed rid this best of worlds of about nine or ten thousand villains who infested its surface. Finally, the bayonet provided ‘sufficient reason’ for the death of several thousand more. The total casualties amounted to about thirty thousand. Candide trembled like a philosopher, and hid himself as best he could during this heroic butchery .“Re: The Atrocities and Brutality of War – Voltaire painted this searing image of a ravished village, Chapter 3.“It was now no more than a smoking ruin, for the Bulgars had burned it to the ground in accordance with the terms of international law. Old men, crippled with wounds, watched helplessly the deaththroes of their butchered women-folk, who still clasped their children to their bloodstained breasts. Girls who had satisfied the appetites of several heroes lay disemboweled in their last agonies. Others, whose bodies were badly scorched, begged to be put out of their misery. Whichever way he looked, the ground was strewn with the legs, arms, and brains of dead villagers.”Re: Disease and its genealogy, with bonus humor on chocolate. Following the passage on the genealogy of Pangloss’ syphilis/pox (which is entertaining too), I found this even more amusing. How the times have changed that a disease can travel the world, as did the bird flu so much faster these days than in the 1700’s, Chapter 4: “For if Columbus, when visiting the West Indies, had not caught this disease, which poisons the source of generation, which frequently even hinders generation, and is clearly opposed to the great end of Nature, we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal. We see, too, that to this very day the disease, like religious controversy, is peculiar to us Europeans. The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, the Japanese as yet have no knowledge of it; but there is a ‘sufficient reason’ for their experiencing it in turn in the course of a few centuries.” If only Voltaire knows about the Catholic Priests’ sex scandals today(!), Chapter 11.“I am the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina.*”“*Notice how exceedingly discreet our author is. There has so far been no Pope called Urban X. He hesitates to ascribe a bastard to an actual Pope. What discretion! What a tender conscience he shows! [Voltaire’s note.]” Suicide vs. Living – such a painful choice sometimes, Chapter 12:“I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most melancholy propensities; for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?” Candide breaks in Chapter 19, upon hearing the negro’s story of this life with chopped off hand and chopped off leg:“What is Optimism?”“It’s the passion for maintaining that all is right when all goes wrong with us.”No peace for men, from Martin, the pessimist, Chapter 20“A million regimented assassins surge from one end of Europe to the other, earning their living by committing murder and brigandage in strictest discipline, because they have no more honest livelihood; and in those towns which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace and where the arts flourish, men suffer more from envy, cares, and anxiety than a besieged town suffers from the scourges of war, for secret vexations are much more cruel than public miseries. “ Re: Men’s Character – Candide vs. Martin, the pessimist, Chapter 21“Do you think that men have always massacred each other, as they do today, that they have always been false, cozening, faithless, ungrateful, thieving, weak, inconstant, mean-spirited, envious, greedy, drunken, miserly, ambitious, bloody, slanderous, debauched, fanatic, hypocritical, and stupid?”“Do you think that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they could find them?”“Of course I do.”“Well, if hawks have always had the same character, why should you suppose that men have changed theirs?”Re: Money doesn’t buy happiness, Chapter 25“You must admit that there is the happiest man alive, because he is superior to all he possesses.”“ Don’t you see that he is disgusted with everything he possesses? Plato long ago said that the best stomachs are not those that reject all food.”

[cbjames_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Candide by Voltaire is a laugh out loud funny book, if you're in the right frame of mind. I read sections of it aloud to CJ and both of us ended up in hysterics. (Be warned, its comedy is often quite dark and unlikely to pass anyone's sensitivity test.) It was written in 1759 and it is clearly a product of its time; but it also still has much to say to us about the current state of the world, unfortunately. The story concerns an idealistic, handsome young man, Candide, who finds his optimism repeatedly tested by the treacherous people he meets and the violent world he inhabits. As a youth, Candide, the son of a wealthy Baron, is tutored by Dr. Pangloss, a German philosopher, who's world view is summed up in the opening chapter, "It is demonstrated that things cannot be otherwise: for, since everything was made for a purpose, everything is necessarily for the best purpose...Therefore, those who have maintained that all is well have been talking nonsense: they should have maintained that all is for the best." Candide clings to Dr. Pangloss' philosoply after Dr. Pangloss is hung and burned at the stake, even after he is driven from his home, separated from his beloved Cunegonde and forced into an unforgiving, hostile world. Candide travels the world looking for Cunegonde and for a place free from suffering. He is at times imprisoned, enslaved, starved, tortured, kidnapped, marooned, etc. etc., but all the while, he believes that all is for the best. The result is a kind of Series of Unfortunate Events for adults. The situations become so comically awful that the reader cannot help but laugh at them and at Candide's reaction. At one point, towards the end of the book, Candide encounters six former kings attending the carnival in Venice. Each king tells his story, all of them stories of how they lost their thrones. Each king's story tries to top the injustice endured by the previous teller with very humorous results. Everyone Candide meets has a tale of woe to tell, yet no one can make a dent in Candide's optimism. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Candide. I expected it to be heavy going, never having read Voltaire before. Instead I found a quickly paced adventure with witty dialogue and satire that I actually found humorous. Candide benefits from the novella form. Had this been a full length novel it would have undoubtedly become tedious. Brevity is the source of wit after all. (I think that's right, anyway.)So, I'm giving Candide by Voltaire five out of five stars. I may end up putting it on my best of the year list this year.

[ireadby · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it!!! Can't believe how something written more than 250 years ago is so relavent to today's society. Voltaire is brilliant and his satirical, cutting humor - spot on!!

[p_s_patrick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Candide is a very childish and silly book, which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it, but that I would have enjoyed it more had it been a bit more complex. The themes and the message, and his attacks, are all very sensible in conception, it is just the way that they are executed that seems puerile. It is as though the philosophy teacher has put a clowns mask on for his lecture, because he thinks that his class (the average Frenchman) won't take notice of him otherwise. It is sarcastic all the way through, and there is irony and satire, but it is never subtle. Had it been subtle, the comic effect could have been greater. It is as though it was written so that anyone could understand it, and it is short enough for the reader not to get bored before finishing it.Clearly it is a work written by a philosopher, though written not for a philosopher but for someone rather simpler.I don't think I've read any other novels which are as overtly philosophical, so there isn't a lot I can compare it with, but in terms of skill with satire, Voltaire is no better than Swift or Waugh at their best. Still, for all the silliness, the message isn't spoilt, and this is a book that will appeal to a lot of people, and one that is worthwhile reading.

[robrod1_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It is a rather depressing book, but it is interesting, and it will raise a multitude of questions in your head.

[stephenbarkley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It’s funny how many small coincidences there are in life. I picked up this book about a year ago with good intentions, only to let it sit on a shelf until I stuffed it into a box to move to Bracebridge. I was looking for something different to read a few nights ago and stumbled across it.In other news, I’m currently preparing to preach a series of “Meaningless Messages” on Ecclesiastes. Imagine my surprise when I realized that Candide was essentially a retelling of Ecclesiastes!Does life have a purpose? Do we live in the best of all possible worlds? What should we do in life?"Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot." (Ecclesiastes 5:18, NIV)"'Let’s work, then, without disputing,' says Martin. 'It is the only way to make life bearable.'” (130)For an old classic, Candide is surprisingly readable. If you want to rethink your position on the meaning of life, this is an interesting place to start.

[pocketmermaid · 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.

[browner56 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There is a great scene in the movie “Vacation” where Chevy Chase, who is on a manic quest to drive his family across country to an amusement park, stops at the Grand Canyon. After taking in the splendor for all of four or five seconds, he hustles the family back into the van to continue the trip, content that they have checked another “must see” landmark off their list.I felt a little like that reading this book. Having long been on my “must read” list, I found "Candide" to be a remarkably forgettable experience that provided little nourishment or pleasure. Its reputation as a classic of the Age of Enlightenment notwithstanding, this satirical novella is at once a slight and heavy-handed trifle. Voltaire’s well-established premise for writing the book was to tear down the philosophy of Optimism (“All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”) that prevailed at the time and which he found to be distinctly at odds with the world he saw around him. However, this is a debate that is more than two centuries in the past and for all his scathing wit, the author offers little in the way of an alternative philosophy save the admonition that man should stay busy and have a purpose, no matter how menial.All that said, I did not dislike the novel but neither did I find it to be either memorable or thought-provoking. I’m happy to have finally read it—at little more than 100 pages, it certainly won’t take up too much of your time—if only to have checked it off my list once and for all.

[kendrarenee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed delving into the theological wanderings of this 17th century philosopher; the backgrounds and criticisms also helped to give the book more depth and context. It was thrilling for me to "get to know" a writer so bold and unflinching in his views, who lived 400 years before I was even born. Candide was delightful--a tease for the brain as well as a story for the soul. I'd recommend.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Voltaire is a famous philosopher of the Enlightenment, and Candide his most famous work. It's very short, a satiric send-up of Leibniz's theory of optimism through Candide's mentor Dr. Pangloss, who believes we live in "the best of all possible worlds" even in the face of increasingly insane disasters. I thought particularly funny the "genealogy of syphilis" where Pangloss traces the lineage of his infection back in a "direct line from one of Christopher Columbus's shipmates." I also rather loved the iconoclastic and grumpy twitting of classics by Pococurante. I might not agree with his lambasting of Homer and Virgil (though I thought he was dead on about Milton) but I agreed with his principle that "Ignorant readers are apt to judge a writer by his reputation. For my part, I read only to please myself. I like nothing but what makes for my purpose." The story wasn't what I expected from the introduction calling this one of Voltaire's "fables of reason" meant to elucidate philosophy. This wasn't at all dry or inaccessible and was quite fun with lots of lines I'd be tempted to quote if there weren't so many that were wise, witty and striking. This short satire reminded me quite a bit of Swift's Gulliver's Travel only with less bathroom humor and more good-natured.

[sovranty · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A voluntary read, I quickly discovered why this book is considered a classic. The cynicism was quaintly balanced with a bit of humor. The prose and plot have been unforgettable.

[le2draqonoviicht · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was for me, only my 3rd venture into: The 'Classics'. I found it uncomplicated, exciting, emotionally stirring and enjoyably thought provoking. I found myself genuinely empathizing with, and sincerely sympathizing for, the characters.It is on my list of top 100 books to recommend, generally and my top 50 to recommend of the commonly acknowledged ‘Classics’.It should be on EVERY Reading List, and All, young, and not so young alike should be encouraged to add this volume to their list of, ‘Have Reads’. - Lucif~Eos Draqonoviicht

[mromano_95 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This short work is the finest example of a sustained literary assault on a philosophical idea; in this case, the idea of Optimism put forth by Leibniz. It was inspired in part by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake that claimed up to 100,000 lives, a disaster that did not fit well in the Leibnizian Optimistic View that this was the best of all possible worlds. Candide is a short, precise and very focused attack on this attitude. As such, it is a masterpiece of world satire along with other notable works like Gulliver's Travels and Huckleberry Finn.

[kmdhow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very funny book. Candide travels the world finding injustice everywhere he goes. It's a fast and easy read.

[duffdaddy-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."

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

Frank McLynn's work 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World mentioned a good deal about Voltaire, as did Leo Dramrosch's Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius. This is my first Voltaire and I was surprised by how small the novella is relative to its historical impact. This has led me to purchase Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful and to take up Tristram Shandy again. Candide and Tristram Shandy were, of course, both published in 1759 so the linkages with my earlier reading are apparent, if unintended. If anything I have gained from Candide confirmation of the idea of tending one's own garden, not to mention a burning desire to remove all further naivety from my very being.

[gravitythread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great satire right on par with Johnathan Swift in Gullivers Travels.

[cameling_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A witty and satirical look at the life of Candide, the love of his life, his valet, philosophy mentor and others as they travel and live through horrors that are inflicted on them. Thank goodness for the Notes provided with the book because it helped me understand some of the terms used, and also provided a great deal of cultural and historical information.

[cygnus555 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aside from the book itself falling apart shortly after I bought it (gotta love penquin classics), it was a wonderful story. Rich with lessons for all of us, it is required reading...

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

Too much rape and calamity.

[sean191 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Voltaire - this is the first work I've read from him. I was thinking it was going to be heavily intellectual - and it had some deep themes, but they were at the same time, very obvious. Overall, the pleasant surprise was just how funny he is - I hadn't been aware.