Voltaire (1694–1778)

What a horrific story! All of the central characters, and many others, suffer the most brutal cruelties from the first page, with only brief pauses to set up the next horror. While I do enjoy a good satire, this story made me want to quit reading.
The story might have been more enjoyable to read if the storyline were more nuanced, but the point is fully evident within the first ten pages and, in stringing it out, Voltaire merely inflicts the pain on his readers as well as his characters. show more Piling one misery on top of another makes Voltaire’s view of the nature of the world inescapable and affirms that there is neither reason nor consolation in philosophy. The only chance of wisdom and security seems to lie in staying home and cultivating one’s garden, although even this is far from secure.
Who would want to read a story of endless varieties of torture and misery if they did not lead to some outcome? This is like watching a horror movie with no resolution (and I’m not one who chooses to watch horror movies anyway). The satire might be justified if it took on a worthy target, but this storyline is not the true nature of the world. The philosophers Voltaire describes are thoughtless idiots, a false caricature that is not worth satirizing. And nor is Voltaire’s picture of the world any more realistic. While there is pain and misery in life for no purpose, most of us lead a good part of our lives in general comfort and even well-being. Even acknowledging the relative privilege I enjoy as a middle-class Canadian, I don’t think the people living in poverty or in underdeveloped countries or countries at war live lives of unrelenting pain. show less

A very charming little satire about a cheerful young boy raised in luxury and educated by a philosopher who espoused optimism. He taught young Candide that he lived in the best possible world and that all that occurs in life is for the best. Thereafter, Candide and his family are beset by a series of horrific tragedies, tortures, and unfortunate circumstances. Although such things would alarm and upset a normal man, Candide is confident that all these disasters are evidence that the world is show more operating as it should be.

Although he often believes his teacher to have been killed, he usually turns up later to impart more wisdom and sermons about the perfect nature of the world. It is a silly story that made me smile, chuckle, and often laugh aloud. This sort of dark humor is just exactly my cup of tea. I didn't want it to end. show less

Candide was an unexpected treat; one of those books that, if I did not know otherwise, I could say was written just for me. It was so deliciously dark and cynical, like if Charles Bukowski and Terry Pratchett had a baby, with Mark Twain as the midwife. But, of course, it pre-dates all of those writers; I found it astonishing just how fresh this 250-year-old topical satire proved to be. It is remarkably modern and, yes, candid in its views: religion, society, philosophy, slavery, hypocrisy, show more and so on, all get both barrels, with Voltaire always eagerly reloading after doing so. I was also (pleasantly) shocked at just how unreserved and lacking in prudishness Voltaire was when discussing sex – particularly as the book was written in the 18th century – but then, perhaps I shouldn't have been: he was a Frenchman after all.

The most unsolicited of my delights from Candide came from the fact that it was also a good adventure story, taking Candide and his band of misfits on a globe-trotting bildungsroman quest around the world: a romping antecedent to the likes of Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Pratchett's Discworld novels. Candide even stumbles across the mythical city of El Dorado, where gold and precious stones are so plentiful they lie in the streets, and whose inhabitants are bemused by their visitors' lust for their 'pebbles' and 'yellow dust'. That Voltaire managed to provide such diverse and satisfying delights in such a short novel (about 140 pages) is to be marvelled at; Candide is one of those rare 'classics' that defies the aura of stuffiness that the genre often suggests.

Despite being a philosophical satire, I was also pleased at how jargon-free Candide remained. This is a short novel the very epitome of brevity: a thoroughly delightful romp that breezes by in no time. The philosophical angle is easy enough to understand even for a layman and it is never boring, for Voltaire is deftly exposing the weaknesses of philosophical theories by pointing out their absurdities, not by critiquing them. Witness the following, after the character Candide is press-ganged into the army, exposing the limits of 'free will' in a world where cruelty and oppression is ever-present:

The bewildered Candide was still rather in the dark about his heroism. One fine spring morning he took it into his head to decamp and walked straight off, thinking it a privilege common to man and beast to use his legs when he wanted. But he had not gone six miles before he was caught, bound, and thrown into a dungeon by four other six-foot heroes. At the court martial he was graciously permitted to choose between being flogged thirty-six times by the whole regiment or having twelve bullets in his brain. It was useless to declare his belief in Free Will and say he wanted neither; he had to make his choice." (pg. 24).

(As a side note, one could easily replace the name 'Candide' with 'Huck Finn' or 'Rincewind' there.) The main thrust of Voltaire's book is not an advocacy of any certain philosophy; rather, it is to try and stop people becoming complacent. Voltaire is satirising the argument that ours is the best of all possible worlds; the argument which claims that when bad things happen they still contribute to the greater good or to the divine plan. Many will note that this is still a view prevalent amongst some woolly-minded folk nowadays. (Candide delivers a revealing definition of optimism on page 86 – "The passion for maintaining that all is right when all goes wrong with us." – which would be worthy of addition to Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary.) Voltaire correctly recognises that this allows people to become complacent; it allows them not to try and make the world better themselves because what is happening, good or bad, is 'part of the plan'. But, as Candide realises at the end of his adventure, "we must go and work in the garden." It will only grow if we work at it; if we pull out the weeds and cultivate the flowers and crops. That's a message we all need reminding of from time to time, and I guarantee you'll never have as much fun learning it as you will here." show less

One of the many classics I am currently re-reading, 'Candide' still entertains me. I would credit its continued relevance as a satire on society and the human condition even though the vast majority of its contemporary references are now forgotten except by specialists and scholars. What touches the modern reader is the humour, the broad but hilariously irreverent characterisation (it had not struck me before how like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are Candide and Cacambo), the sharpness of show more the satire, and the questioning philosophy. I would argue there are few more powerful books on the hold our acquisitive natures have on us and the futility of our greed, or on the merits of finding our personal gardens to cultivate. show less