Candide (Cliffs Notes)

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Summary: it is a good book to read
Review: candide is very good work of voltiar

Rating:
Summary: This book doesn't make too much sense
Review: How in the world does someone die and come back to life over and over again? Too many static characters. Readers need change. C'mon homey, find another woman!!!

Rating:
Summary: Insights into Voltaire's attack on "Optimism"
Review: This review is of James K. Lowers Cliff Notes for Voltaire's "Candide," the French comic masterpiece. The strength of this particular little yellow book with the black stripes are the introductory and background materials for "Candide." Although Voltaire's novel is a literary masterpiece, is it also a rhetorical work that needs to be understood in its particular context of time and place. In his "Introduction," Lowers defines a "Voltairean" and provides a very detailed 10-page essay on Voltaire's career and how he came to write "Candide." After the standard summary/commentary review of the novel's chapters, Lowers is equally detailed in covering the "Background to 'Candide.'" Specifically, he establishes the Philosophy of Gottfired Wilhelm Leibnitz, satirized by Voltaire as "optimism" (the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds) and embodied in Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man," a poetic but rationalistic effort to justify the ways of God to man philosophically. Lowers shows how Voltaire responded to the devastating Iberian earthquake on November 1, 1755 with his "Poem Sur Le Desastre de Lisbonne" and "Candide," showing how the philosophy of optimism was inadequate for explaining such tragedies. This book ends with a look at other sources of influence for Voltaire, the structure and style of the novel, and satire in irony in "Candide." But clearly the strength of this Cliffs Notes is on the macro level, explaining the importance of the novel in history, more so than on the micro level, dealing with the book on a chapter by chapter basis. However, it is clear that there is an abundance of insightful material here to be used by both teachers and students in coming to terms with Voltaire's comic novel, most of which will prove useful even before reading "Candide."

Rating:
Summary: Insights into Voltaire's attack on "Optimism"
Review: This review is of James K. Lowers Cliff Notes for Voltaire's "Candide," the French comic masterpiece. The strength of this particular little yellow book with the black stripes are the introductory and background materials for "Candide." Although Voltaire's novel is a literary masterpiece, is it also a rhetorical work that needs to be understood in its particular context of time and place. In his "Introduction," Lowers defines a "Voltairean" and provides a very detailed 10-page essay on Voltaire's career and how he came to write "Candide." After the standard summary/commentary review of the novel's chapters, Lowers is equally detailed in covering the "Background to 'Candide.'" Specifically, he establishes the Philosophy of Gottfired Wilhelm Leibnitz, satirized by Voltaire as "optimism" (the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds) and embodied in Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man," a poetic but rationalistic effort to justify the ways of God to man philosophically. Lowers shows how Voltaire responded to the devastating Iberian earthquake on November 1, 1755 with his "Poem Sur Le Desastre de Lisbonne" and "Candide," showing how the philosophy of optimism was inadequate for explaining such tragedies. This book ends with a look at other sources of influence for Voltaire, the structure and style of the novel, and satire in irony in "Candide." But clearly the strength of this Cliffs Notes is on the macro level, explaining the importance of the novel in history, more so than on the micro level, dealing with the book on a chapter by chapter basis. However, it is clear that there is an abundance of insightful material here to be used by both teachers and students in coming to terms with Voltaire's comic novel, most of which will prove useful even before reading "Candide."