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    Candide (Annotated)
    Candide (Annotated)
    Candide (Annotated)
    Ebook156 pages1 hour

    Candide (Annotated)

    By Voltaire and Tobias Smollett

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    One of the great works of Western literature, Voltaire's Candide is a picaresque tale with profound philosophical underpinnings. Its plot, which sees the eponymous hero stoically endure one calamity after another, elegantly delineates Voltaire's belief that no matter what may befall us, 'all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.'
     
    • Revised version of the Smollett translation.
    • Presented in modern English spelling and punctuation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Rococo Press
    Release dateJun 19, 2018
    ISBN9781387886210
    Candide (Annotated)
    Author

    Voltaire

    Voltaire was the pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778)a French philosopher and an author who was as prolific as he was influential. In books, pamphlets and plays, he startled, scandalized and inspired his age with savagely sharp satire that unsparingly attacked the most prominent institutions of his day, including royalty and the Roman Catholic Church. His fiery support of freedom of speech and religion, of the separation of church and state, and his intolerance for abuse of power can be seen as ahead of his time, but earned him repeated imprisonments and exile before they won him fame and adulation.

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    Reviews for Candide (Annotated)

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    • 4/5
      I saw this at the Guthrie Theater in the late 80s and it was great; the story still holds up.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      Classic modern fable exploring the once popular philosophy of 'everything now is exactly as it should be and for the best' with comedic results.
    • 4/5
      Absolutely hilarious, and extremely easy to read as well.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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!!
    • 5/5
      One of the definitive pieces of satire in literature and it still holds up to this day. It never flinches in its attack on the human condition and like the somewhat lengthier "Gulliver's Travels," has no time for redemption or optimism. That's why I love it so.
    • 5/5
      This book was pretty funny. I didn't understand most of the satire being that it was written well before my time, but I got the overall sense that it was humorous and quite enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      This was a fun read even though I wouldn't agree with Voltaire's philosophy and deism. The story is a fun journey tale of Candide. Candide is kicked out of the best possible castle and travels through Europe with his philosopher friends to the Americas, to Eldorado (truly the best possible place) and then back to Europe. Candide pursues his true love only to find her grown ugly by the time he finds her. In the end he decides that work is the only way to avoid boredom, vice and poverty and states "we must cultivate our garden".
    • 2/5
      Too much rape and calamity.
    • 4/5
      It's a sweet little satire. Easy and fun, it reads like a fable. I'm not sure that I get the more complicated satirical meanings - seeing as how it was written in the eighteen century... but it's definitely full of quips that you could use.
    • 2/5
      I know that I'm supposed to love Candide. I know that it is a classic and brilliant and satirical and everything else that has ever been said about it. Really, I do know that but I just didn't like it.

      I get that Voltaire was trying to prove a point with the adventures and beliefs of Candide but the story was just so negative. I felt so bad for poor Candide. It was hard for me to continue reading knowing that Candide was just going to have more outrageously horrible things happen to him.

      Before you yell at me, remember that I know the purpose of Candide's story. Voltaire was living during a time of great philosophical thought and he was using this story to satirize the politics and religious fervor of the mid eighteenth century. I just felt that as a novel (novella?) it was not very enjoyable. Voltaire comes across as so negative. I may read Candide a second time (especially when I am not dealing with the flu) and give Voltaire a second chance to charm me.
    • 3/5
      Wow, LOL. This book in some ways reminded me of Carroll's Through the Looking Glass & Wonderland. It was truly a fantastically spun tale of grave misfortune, meetings by chance, the strength of a love, & the ending in a quiet place where to work is to be happy. It's actually QUITE funny in places, but the telling can be so far fetched that you may have to put it down a time or two, walk away, clear your head, then come back, even though it is a very short piece!
    • 4/5
      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...
    • 5/5
      (This refers to the Peter Constantine translation from 2005.) This wonderful and short book ought to be first called philosophical, then satirical, then an adventure, and finally political. Unlike his contemporary Flaubert (such as in A Sentimental Education), Voltaire manages to keep contemporary references staggered in a perfect quantity to not overwhelm his 'main meal' with spices of political reference and opinionated controversy. While the story itself is a little unbelievable and facile, this fits perfectly with the satire Voltaire is able to exact on just about every nation, religion, political party, playwright, and idea he chooses--and he chooses to be inclusive! The bashful optimist Candide, the love of his life Cunegonde, and his troupe of intermittent companies such as a mulatto sidekick, a practical foil, an 'old woman', a womanizing abbot, and finally his lifelong tutor, Professor Pangloss, who teaches primarily 'metaphysico-theolog-cosmo-idiotology all serve to act out an adventure and a wonderful debate on how to think about and act toward this very hard thing called life. While not a Buddhist tract by any means, it certainly concludes with some telling signs supportive of 'calm abiding'; and resolves to a very simple, perhaps almost Theroux-esque philosophies. This is put together well on all levels and will be enjoyed by all except staunch and sensitive believers of their own religion. The book is tawdry and explicit at times, which dulls its impact.The Constantine translation is light, wry and true. It feels as if this is most like what a contemporary reader must have transacted out of the book at the time it was written, certainly in terms of humor and light pique. The last time I read this was in French in middle school and it was much more of a pleasure in English in this version.
    • 5/5
      A biting satire of early 17th century European culture, which is still surprisingly funny. I was also not expecting something quite so graphic from an old classic; queasy or uptight readers, be warned. This version sports a cartoon version of the story on the cover, which I could not resist. If you're a stickler for accuracy, however, you should be warned that some of the character names in the cartoon are incorrect, and there are other discrepancies.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      Okay Okay. I am quoting it to myself all the time now, given what Bush has done to our once lovely and promising country. Sad to say, lots of dumb despotic Kings did it to lots of other countries for centuries in the past. And, we never learn. Definitely a good read to bring us back to reality and reinforce our responsibilities for today.
    • 5/5
      I have been trying to read more of the classics for years and when I saw the cover of "Candide" I knew that this was the next classic read for me. I laughed so much during this book. Often times the older books are very dry and proper that it is a bore to read. Voltaire told it how he saw it.
    • 4/5
      "Voltaire would probably have been both pleasantly surprised as well as bemused by the exceptional and enduring popularity of Candide, which he viewed as one of his minor works, unworthy to vie with his tragedies, historical essays, and epic and philosophical poems, on which he staked his posthumous reputation... Voltaire wrote contes (tales) late in his career and almost as an afterthought, for he subscribed to the neoclassical canon and hierarchy of literary genres according to which tragedy in verse and epic poetry gave an author his most reliable passport to posterity and immortality. Novels, short stories, and contes were looked upon suspiciously as upstart genres with n credible aesthetic or even moral pedigree." (Gita May, 2005)The above quote from the Barnes & Noble 2005 "Introduction" ironically demonstrate the message of Candide - Voltaire spent a lifetime working in neoclassical genres, serious long works that are largely no longer read today - this is a tragedy really almost exactly like that described in Chapter XXV about a noble Venetian with a great library that he never reads. However, in a comic twist, it is Voltaire's least serious work in an "upstart genre" (the novel) that has remained the most popular and widely read. Thus Voltaire in a way pre-saged his own career, a timeless message in which the message is the message itself. Today the "classical" form is the novel, perhaps in the future it will be a new "upstart genre" such as blogs, Wikiipedia or other online written forms.
    • 3/5
      Candide. It took me some time to read this book, even though it is very thin. Actually, since it was written in the 18th century, I expected some quaint old language and obscure grammer (like I found in Defo's 'Moll Flanders'), but the book was easy and readable. It contains a lot of dark humour, and a lot of darkness in any way. Murders, rape, disease, body mutilation, it is all there, and all this the main character goes through, while losing all his loved ones and all dignity and all throughout he maintains his motto that "all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds", which is also the philosophy which Voltaire mocks in this novel. I liked it, but wasn't too swept away by it. I would like to search for other works by Voltaire.
    • 5/5
      Edited 2-16-07My first review of this book was lukewarm, praising the physical book itself (the Penguin Deluxe Classics Edition) more than the content within. And so now I'm re-reviewing to right my past wrongs.Candide is absolutely still relevant and funny today. The first time I read it (and I am ashamed to admit this), I completely missed out on the sarcastic tone of the book, a huge, huge oversight that completely ruined it for me.However, I have since read it again, understanding both Voltaire and the issue at hand a little more, and it is indeed fantastic. It makes me wish I was around in 1759 to see the looks on the faces of those Voltaire attacked when they read it. Definitely worth your time and money.
    • 4/5
      It's easy to understand, after reading Candide, why Voltaire wasn't high on the hit-parade of the Church and certain aristocrats.
    • 5/5
      Before there was the opera by Leonard Bernstein there was the original, Candide: or, Optimism by Voltaire (nee Francois-Marie Arouet). The important thing to note about the title is the subtitle, optimism, for in all of literature there is hardly another work that argues more strongly for an optimistic approach to life. While Voltaire takes a cynical view of humanity that even denizens of the twenty-first century can appreciate, his cynicism does not lead him, or rather does not lead his character Doctor Pangloss, to reject an optimism that is best know by the phrase; this is "the best of all possible worlds". Yet, it is late in the book that we realize that Voltaire takes a view that man's life is made worth living by the exercise of hope, good nature, and industry. Indeed, the book ends with Candide saying to Doctor Pangloss, "we must cultivate our garden". And our garden, even for the skeptic Voltaire, is the one we inherited from Adam after his unceremonious exit from Eden. Voltaire's Candide is a delight for the reader almost two hundred fifty years after its first appearance from the fiery pen of one of the greatest thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment.
    • 5/5
      Voltaire published Candide - a classic satire which skewers politics, religious fanaticism, war, and colonialism - in 1759 to almost immediate success, despite being quickly condemned by French and Swiss authorities and banned by the Catholic church. The book sold phenomenally well "underground" and is considered one of the greatest satires of all time.Voltaire created the naive, young Candide as a way to poke fun at religion and politics, while at the same time questioning the philosophy of Leibniz who was the eternal optimist, believing that all happened for the best and we lived in the best of all worlds. Faced with cataclysmic events (such as the 1755 earthquake of Lisbon which killed thousands), Voltaire questions the idea of a benevolent God who could allow such tragedy.In the novel, Candide faces ludicrous and horrible situations...including floggings, beatings, betrayal, imprisonment, and separation from his beloved Cunegonde. Throughout his travels, Candide meets officials, Jesuits, and philosophers...and discovers a Utopian community...which all gives Voltaire ample opportunity to to attack corruption and hypocrisy in religion, government, philosophy and science. One of my favorite moments in the book was when Candide questions the leader of the Country of El Dorado (Utopia). The scene that follows puts Voltaire's cutting humor on display:Candide was interesting in seeing some of their priests and had Cacambo ask the old man where they were; at which he, smiling, said: "My friends, we are all priests. The king and all the heads of the families sing solemn hymns of thanksgiving every morning, accompanied by five or six thousand musicians." What!" says Cacambo, "you have no monks among you to dispute, to govern, to intrigue, and to burn people who are not of the same opinion as themselves?" -From Candide, page 71-Voltaire's classic is as relevant today as it was nearly 250 years ago. Truly a book which will stimulate important discussion, this one is highly recommended; rated 4.5 stars.
    • 3/5
      Having never read anything by Voltaire before I didn't know what to expect, but he being known as one of the greatest French philosophers of all times, I was prepared for a tedious and complex novel.I couldn't have been wronger. "Candide" is a satirical short tale, without ornaments, straight to the point, which describes the crudeness of human nature. We follow Candide and his friends travelling around the world and suffering all king of imaginable vicissitudes while trying to believe what their master told them: That everything is for the best. The final message left me a bit dumbfounded, I expected wise advice after such strong criticism and Voltaire gives the reader the pessimist impression that he gives little credit to humans in general, as if we were inferior creatures who shouldn't bother to question about philosophical issues which are beyond our limited understanding.All in all, a strange reading which left me wondering if we can take something positive out of this sarcastic and raw tale.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      A complete and utter failure! Voltaire presents us with the premise that this is the best of all possible worlds, but only evil befalls his poor characters: scandal, conscription, rape, murder, pillage, mutilation, disease, disaster, inquisition, genocide, adultery, slavery, shipwreck, kicks in the backside, you name it. What the author was thinking of, I can scarcely imagine. I'm going back to my garden now.
    • 5/5
      Spurred by the empty philosophy of those who argued that everything happend for the best, Voltaire presents the tale of Candide, a young man to whom clearly a great many things happened that were not for the best. Voltaire used his open-ended, episodic style to showcase vignettes of calamity and loss in which Candide dutifully, and blindly adheres the the philophy of his instructor, Dr. Pangloss who assures him that everything will work out for the best. Voltaire satirizes optimistic philosophy, as well as the materialistic foibles of mankind.

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    Candide (Annotated) - Voltaire

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