Rating: 
Summary: The most entertainment for your money
Review: The story is quick-- there is never a slow pace. Everything shared is done so matter of factly, you'll need to back track to realize that something serious has just happened. Just pay attantion to all the little ironic twists from a man banned from his own country (Voltaire, the author, I mean.)
Rating: 
Summary: Candid About Candide
Review: The style of exposition used in this book is reminiscent of The Misfortunes of Virtue by the Marquis de Sade. Voltaire presents a catalog of calamities meant to debunk the belief that our world is perfect, and that everything happens "for the best" according to some divine plan. While there is no doubt that Candide is persuasive in its comical misadventures, the style gets old just as it did in The Misfortunes of Virtue. The story becomes a trite joke that loses its potency with each subsequent catastrophe, so that half way through the novel the reader no longer cares what befalls Candide and begins to pray that some benevolent deity will put him out of his (and our) misery. If I were not so thoroughly desensitized to tragedy, and had I not already come to the philosophical conclusions that Voltaire is trying to lead his reader, than I might have found the novel to be more profound. Still the novel is well written, reads quickly if you ignore the endnotes*, and is fairly entertaining. The worst part of this novel is the numerous jabs that Voltaire throws at his contemporary rivals, which I found to be completely annoying. If the author chooses to use his novel as a means of disseminating propaganda against his opponents so be it, but don't expect it to translate well into a time when you and all those other characters are long since dead. Attacking ridiculous ideas is one thing, but forcing the reader (ME) to endure century old grudges through less than subtle personal attacks is something entirely different. Even after reading the "titillating tidbits" supplied by the annotator -- e.g. "The Journal de Trevoux, founded in 1701, was a Jesuit periodical hostile to Voltaire" or "Gabriel Gauchat, a contemporary critic hostile to Voltaire and the Encyclopedists" -- I still have no clue what or who Voltaire is attacking. * Every time I was compelled to read an endnote just to find out that Voltaire was referencing some long forgotten Frenchmen I wanted to fling the book across the room.
Rating: 
Summary: A Masterpiece!
Review: This book written by Voltaire in 1759 is as funny to read now as it was when it was written. It tells the story about an illegitimate son of Dr. Pangloss. This book is a satire and as good a depiction of the follies and vices of men that you'll find. We follow Candide through many outrageous adventures which put into question all that mankind holds dear (such as science, philosophy, religion, government and romance). It attacks the pretentiousness of the upper classes. It attacks man's culpability, stupidity and crudeness. It's funny, warm and incredibly poignant. Wonderful book!
Rating:
Summary: Voltaire's Classic
Review: This classic by Voltaire is wonderful satire. Candide, the young illegitimate nephew of a German baron, is taught by his teacher/philosopher Pangloss that this world is "the best of all possible worlds." Candide falls in love with Cunegonde, the baron's young daughter. When their love is discovered, Candide is expelled from his home, and the fun starts. The entire novel is then consumed with tongue-in-cheek melodrama of Candide's worldwide attempt to find and marry Cunegonde, who is, of course, constantly on the move.
Early on in the story we realize that the important aspects of Voltaire's novel are not the plot's details but the higher themes: the "real-world" tragedy which disproves Pangloss' initial optimistic teachings, the hypocrisy of the day's religious theologians, and the inability of money to solve problems. Voltaire's wit shines in his masterpiece, and while this book is not for young children, it does have broad appeal, especially due to its short length.
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.
| 
