Candide

Rating:
Summary: Delicious Irony Amidst Swift-Like Satire
Review: Ever since philosophers began thinking about the meaning of life, a favorite question has been "Why do bad things happen to good people?". In Voltaire's day, this issue was primarily pursued either from the perspective of faith (everything that happens is God's will and must be for Divine purpose) or of reason (What do these events mean to you, as you interpret them subjectively?). Infuriated by the reaction by some members of the church to a horrible loss of life from an earthquake in Lisbon, Voltaire wrote this hard-biting satire of the human condition to explore these questions.

Before reading further, let me share a word of caution. This book is filled with human atrocities of the most gruesome sort. Anything that you can imagine could occur in war, an Inquisition, or during piracy happens in this book. If you find such matters distressing (as many will, and more should), this book will be unpleasant reading. You should find another book to read.

The book begins as Candide is raised in the household of a minor noble family in Westphalia, where he is educated by Dr. Pangloss, a student of metaphysical questions. Pangloss believes that this is the best of all possible worlds and deeply ingrains that view into his pupil. Candide is buoyed by that thought as he encounters many setbacks in the course of the book as he travels through many parts of Europe, Turkey, and South America.

All is well for Candide until he falls in love with the Baron's daughter and is caught kissing her hand by the Baron. The Baron immediately kicks Candide out of the castle (literally on the backside), and Candide's wanderings begin. Think of this as being like expulsion from the Garden of Eden for Adam. Soon the penniless Candide finds himself in the Bulgarian army, and receiving lots of beatings while he learns to drill.

The story grows more far-fetched with each subsequent incident. To the casual reader, this exaggeration can seem unnecessary and annoying. It will remind you of the most extreme parts of Swift in Gulliver's Travels and Rabelais in Gargantua and Pantagruel. But subtly, Voltaire is using the exaggeration to lure the reader into making complacent judgments about complacency itself that Voltaire wants to challenge. The result is a deliciously ironical work that undermines complacency at a more fundamental level than I have seen done elsewhere. Basically, Candide challenges any view you have about complacency that is defined in terms of the world-view of those who are complacent.

Significant changes of circumstances (good and ill) occur to all of the members of the Baron's household over the course of the story. Throughout, there is much comparing of who has had the worst luck, with much feeling sorry for oneself.

That is the surface story. Voltaire is, however, a master of misdirection. Beneath the surface, Voltaire has another purpose for the book. He also wants to expose the reader to questioning the many bad habits that people have that make matters worse for everyone. The major themes of these undercurrents are (1) competing rather than to cooperating, (2) employing inhumane means to accomplish worldly (and many spiritual) ends, (3) following expected rules of behavior to show one's superiority over others that harm and degrade others, (4) focusing on money and power rather than creating rich human relationships, (5) hypocritical behavior, and (6) pursuing ends that society approves of rather than ends that please oneself.

By the end of the story, the focus shifts again to a totally different question: How can humans achieve happiness? Then, you have to reassess what you thought about the book and what was going on in Voltaire's story. Many readers will choose to reread the book to better capture Voltaire's perspective on that final question, having been surprised by it.

Candide is one of my favorite books because it treats important philosophical questions in such an unusual way. Such unaccustomed matching of treatment and subject matters leaves an indelible impression that normal philosophical arguments can never match. Voltaire also has an amazing imagination. Few could concoct such a story (even by using illegal substances to stimulate the subconscious mind). I constantly find myself wondering what he will come up with next. The story is so absurd that it penetrates the consciousness at a very fundamental level, almost like doing improvisation. In so doing, Voltaire taps into that feeling of "what else can happen?" that overcomes us when we are at our most pessimistic. So, gradually you will find yourself identifying with the story -- even though nothing like this could ever happen to you. Like a good horror story, you are also relieved that you can read about others' troubles and can put your own into perspective. This last point is the fundamental humanity of the story. You see what a wonderful thing a kind word, a meal, or a helping hand can be. That will probably inspire you to offer those empathic actions more often.

After you have finished Candide, I suggest that you ask yourself where complacency about your life and circumstances is costing you and those you care about the potential for more health, happiness, peace, and prosperity. Then take Voltaire's solution, and look around you for those who enjoy the most of those four wonderful attributes. What do those people think and do differently from you?

Rating:
Summary: The Best of All Worlds
Review: Voltaire's short 1759 lampoon of the fashionable feel-good philosophies then making the rounds of Europe continues to bring a smile. It's not a literary masterpiece, but a quick and funny satire. In style, it reads something like Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", but its humor is more pointed and its satire more trenchant.

Candide is an illegitimate boy expelled from his adoptive home for kissing the Baron's daughter. A simple and candid man, he resolutely adheres to his tutor's absurd theory that "all is for the best". In coming years, Candide and everyone he meets suffer tortures, rapes, slavery, and death. Yet Candide remains ever the silly optimist, chasing the Baron's daughter around the world and giving Voltaire space to vent against the happy feel-good philosophers with their buzzwords, tautological reasoning, and empty aphorisms. The tutor, for example, demonstrates the "necessity" of syphillus, as having brought chocolate to Europe though "it is to be observed that this malady is, like religious controversy, peculiar to our continent".

Candide is a quick satire, silly and contrived, but we can read it with pleasure 250 later, long after the targets of Voltaire's wit have faded away.

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Summary: Even Proust isn¿t this french.
Review: This is a french book. French books are, of course, often french, but this one is frencher than most. Ah, Pierrot! Reading this fine french book makes me the sad clown of life. Could Voltaire be any frencher, you ask? I doubt it. I am a sad clown, I say. Even when he criticizes the French he does so in a, how do you say, french way. Oui, oui! So come, bring along your Jerry Lewis video tapes and we will read this very french book together. It is frencher than a Quebecer at a Steisand concert. Frencher than Little Richard at an amfAR banquet. Frencher than Richard Simmons at a french pride parade. Read Candide and you too can be a very french sad clown. Sacre Bleu!!!

Rating:
Summary: A Comic Masterpiece -- read it to laugh!
Review: Candide, which is subtitled Optimism, was written in 1759, and is proof that a sharp wit and biting satire was just as much appreciated in Voltaire's time, as it is today.

Candide is the life story of a fictional character named Candide. He is a naive, innocent, and optimistic sort of person. If you ever feel that life has treated you unfairly, then you have nothing to complain about if you compare yourself to poor Candide. Just about everything bad imaginable happens to him during the course of his life. Fortunately, at least Voltaire leaves him still alive at the end of the book.

Although the book is funny and fast paced (my copy has 115 pages), it can best be appreciated by recognizing the author's intention. Candide is Voltaire's commentary on the church's prevailing philosophy at the time.

In Voltaire's time, the church preached that because God is perfect, he would only create the best of all possible worlds. To create a lesser world would imply that God was less than perfect. I don't believe Voltaire's argument was against this philosophy per se, but rather against the way it was used to justify all the evil found in the world.

The "best of all possible worlds" proponents used the argument to justify all bad things as a necessary part of the world and so bad things should be accepted as just another part of life. However, Voltaire's philosophy was that "we must cultivate our gardens", i.e., help the good to grow while pulling out the weeds. Greed, lust, vice, etc., were not necessary in Voltaire's opinion and we should make every attempt to ward off such evils rather than merely accept them.

The "best of all possible worlds" philosophy is exemplified in the book by Candide's teacher, Dr. Pangloss (a footnote says that Pangloss means "all-tongue"). Pangloss teaches Candide this philosophy and Candide tries to use it throughout the book to justify the bad things that happen to him. Voltaire uses this approach to ridicule proponents of the "best of all possible worlds" argument for why evil things happen, and takes us on an exciting and funny adventure in the process.

Candide is certainly one of the best books you could ever read. After all, there must be some reason the book is still popular today and has even been made into musical plays. Other quick Amazon picks include, White Noise by DeLillo, [e-mail] by Tom Grimes

Rating:
Summary: Edutainment, 18th century style
Review: Candide is a short satirical work that questions if this world is indeed the best of all possible worlds, as 'Liebniz's disciples' believed. Their uncaring verdict on the loss of lives from the earthquake in Lisbon coupled with their arrogance and lack of tact in the time of suffering was fuel for Voltaire's fire.

The book is fairly short and can be read in one sitting; it is laugh out loud funny in some places as the most absurd things happen to the major characters. I read it mostly because I like satire and not to get any particular message out of it. The story is pretty straightforward and I guess it does raise a few questions in the readers mind about what our purpose in this life is, how to find happiness, contentment etc... but it can also be read for the pleasure of 'listening' to one of the wittiest men that has ever lived (or so they tell me).

I have not done justice to this book, and you can read longer reviews about it on this site, but I would advice you to read it yourself and then make up your mind. Get the Penguin edition.
Again, read this book! It's short, it's funny and it's by Voltaire, what other encouragement do you need?

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Summary: Finally A Book That Mirrors My Own Thoughts On The World
Review: I had some hesitation about reading Candide but I found that this book has mirrored my own thoughts on how life is. That things aren't for the greater good, that with courage and persiverance that we can achieve our goals. That; it is best to cultivate one's own garden.

One thing; this book is very, very French. It is very Moliere, Diderot, etc. styled. It is ludicruous in some spots and so over the top.

Wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: One-note concerto
Review: I loved this book the first time I read it in college. But after re-reading it, I've concluded that while Voltaire has a lot going on in this story, there is a simple formula directing the action: Candide meets some people. They do him wrong somehow. On the verge of death Candide escapes. Rinse, repeat.

I still love reading the early chapters, they are comical masterpieces. I see Cunegonde in an entirely different light now than when I was younger. Candide and Pangloss are still naive morons, of course. And I have new found appreciation for Martin.

Overall, Candide is great fun, but can get repetitious. Best read in one sitting.

Rating:
Summary: Candide--A classic worth reading
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading Voltaire's Candide. Voltaire's use of satire and irony creates timeless humor that can be appreciated by many readers. Candide, Voltaire's protagonist, is not necessarily a character with whom readers would relate. Like most of the characters in the novel, Candide is a caricature, an exaggeration of optimism, ignorance, and naïve views. Voltaire proves through his novel that sometimes the best way to make a lasting effect on one's audience is to show something in its most blatant form. Voltaire's sarcasm and ridicule of a particular party or stereotype can seem a bit harsh at times. However, I think that Voltaire felt the combination of humor and tough criticism was the best way to bring to light his own disgust with hypocrisy within the church and government. The situations and conflicts that Voltaire places his characters in produce surprising illustrations of issues of the 1700's, such as war, poverty, and prostitution. Although this novel was written nearly 250 years ago, striking parallels can be drawn between the issues that Voltaire comments on and the issues that authors of our time choose to focus on in their literature.

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Summary: ...We Must Cultivate Our Garden
Review: Born in 1694, Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, the famous Parisian satirist known simply as Voltaire was truly my kind of guy. He was a rebellious free-thinker who did not tow the societal line of unchallenged conformity. He challenged the acceptable norms of his time and went against the grain by not accepting the status quo; and he paid the consequences for it too. After spending time in the Bastille, a state prison that stood for the absolute despotism of the Ancient Regime, he was eventually released only on the condition that he leave France.

Of course, his works were, in my view, a reaction to madness of the era in which he lived. Having the luxury of hindsight, which is often said to be "20/20," it seems to me that what was seen as nonconformity then, was really just sensibility and enlightenment. Born only ten years prior to the death of the great English philosopher John Locke, Voltaire lived in the same era that produced David Hume, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant. Indeed, Voltaire lived in the Age of Enlightenment.

Like Jonathan Swift (whose satirical influence on Voltaire is evident), Voltaire had the ability to tell an absurd story in the most natural manner with notable wit, clarity, and polish. As such, Candide is a very manageable read, and an enjoyable one at that; even for those with little time on their hands. It is as much a classic of satirical literature as any other ever written.

Voltaire wrote Candide at the age of sixty-five as a response, in the form of satirical mockery, to the optimism of Leibniz. "Everything is for the best in the best of worlds..." said the optimists. In Candide, both optimism and pessimism are personified and explored in the characters of the book. At the time Candide was written, Voltaire clearly had already lived a long, full life with many experiences to draw discernment from. What he witnessed and experienced in his life contradicted the philosophy and absolute certainty of the optimists; or at least, it proved to him that the optimists were only half-correct (or half-incorrect, depending on your perspective!). The duality of man, and of all the things in this world for that matter, was evident to him.

Simply put, the premise of Candide is based on a young and naive neophyte's (the title character) experiences in a harsh, rude, and cruel world. In nearly every instance, Candide's observations and experiences show him that mankind is a rather wicked animal. Accompanying these experiences are characters that embody optimism, which is personified by the character Pangloss; and pessimism is represented by the character Martin, who believes that man, "...is born to live either in convulsions of distress or the lethargy of boredom." One of the splendid qualities of this book lies in the fact that Voltaire accepted neither Martin's pessimism nor Pangloss's optimism at face value. Each perspective is explored and valued equally, allowing the reader to decide for themselves through reflective contemplation the merits of both views.

This book is without question, in my mind, a great classic. Everyone should read Voltaire's magnum opus, Candide, before they die.

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Summary: The Father of the Enlightenment
Review: Voltaire's Candide is Perhaps the best satire ever written. It was the silly blind optimism and indifferent response to human suffering and injustice of his era that Voltaire mocked. Through the antics of his tutor Dr Pangloss ' a metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigologist' no less, Voltaire attacked much received wisdom and was not afraid to confront the dark aspects of human nature honestly.

Nonetheless, He believed in democratic enlightenment, the power of science and reason to make a better world.

His message is still prescient to this day.