Candide (1759)

I liked this book:-)
A short read, that I hadn't read for my French literature list in grammar school. For some reason 'Voltaire' was enough to keep me from it.

Now I got around to it, I liked it a lot. I'm very sorry that some of the remarks orexplanations made in the notes escaped me. The book has a lot of cross links, or hints to more or less contemporary works, situations etc. but by dar not all of them ring bells.
To aboud frustration over that, I decided just to 'read the book' and then decide whether I liked the story or not, and I did.
It must be very frustrating to go through all Candide goes through and still not really find what yo have been hoping for in the end. ( )

"Candide" reads like John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" with a sarcastic, funny twist. It is fast-paced in action, and I was not certain whether that meant I was better off running with the pace of the story (I did) or taking it slow and trying to grasp each element of the action in its fulness (I think I might have gotten lost, although that may be an approach for another read-through). At first I saw the book as a literary equivalent of "A Modest Proposal:" something clever and funny, but not about a problem that really affects the modern reader anymore, as this book is so clearly focussed on rebutting the philosophies of Leibniz, with whom I have only a passing acquaintance. However, I believe the themes of good and evil, free will and predeterminism, and how we should live in response to the world in which we find ourselves are ultimately universal enough that there is still something here to speak to us today, and while I feel as if the book in many ways goes against a lot of the philosophies I believe in, I enjoyed it just the same, which I think says a lot. Voltaire's pre-Revolutionary views on racial equality are also especially intriguing.

The Barnes and Noble edition contains an introduction, a summary of the George Bernard Shaw and Leonard Bernstein adaptations of "Candide," a few excerpts from critics of different eras, and four questions to provoke further thought. The introduction is little more than a plot summary, and the criticism is not particularly insightful. The questions are okay for stimulating the casual reader to a little extra thought, but are not specific enough to be useful to teachers looking to analyse this book in depth. This is some of the least useful supplementary material I've seen in a Barnes and Noble edition, so my five stars go to the literary work itself, not this particular publication of it (although the footnotes and endnotes in the text are quite helpful). As an aside, I read this in the search for suitable literature for my 3rd year French class to read in either French or English. Even in English, I think this book would be far above their heads, so I would not suggest this for a high school setting where the object is to decode and comprehend written French. It's a plausible choice for an English literature class, but only if you're willing to spend the time on it. At the college level, however, this is definitely a worthy choice for an upper-division class in either language. ( )

I feel like this is a book that sticks with you, but I think I would like to read it again before I make a judgement. At first I loved the satire, but it became too much for me by the end. It's definitely one to ponder.

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." ( )

Witty, easy to read, satirical, interesting. I shall have to dig more into context and such, to understand it fully, but I enjoyed it very much even without that. It's genuinely funny in itself, too, which is probably why it survives so well, even though satire is usually very much of its moment. ( )