Mason Hoffenberg (1922–1986)

Stupendously, unbelievably awful. Candy Christian is a beautiful, naïve, well-intentioned young student whose trusting nature gets her into all sorts of misadventures, most of which don't involve a whole lot of clothes. If you think that this would be a pretty good set-up for a sharp satire on sixties youth culture, you'd be right. Alternately, this could have been a kind of naughty picaresque: Forrest Gump, if he looked like Jane Mansfield. But just everything about this book is wrong. show more Candy herself is less "naïve" than straight-up lobotomized, a living, breathing sex doll, and her adventures consist mostly of her getting naked with a bunch of long-winded college-professor types. Even the hippie satire stuff doesn't really work until the book's final scene, where Candy's utter lack of personality gets turned into a sort of zen vacuity. Otherwise, what you're left with is some Jewish-themed humor that hasn't aged all that well and a bunch of regrettable slang terms for female genitalia (jelly-box, sugar scoop, and much worse). Oh, and the anecdote that apparently Terry Southern hadn't even read Voltaire's "Candide" before writing this one, and only picked it up and noticed the parallels after his book became a hit. That's a good one, but books with this much sex in them shouldn't be this boring. And they certainly don't have to be this creepy. This is the sort of book that gives smut a bad name. show less

I have no idea what I just read.

I picked this up because Terry Southern was involved in the creation of Barbarella, so I thought I'd give this book a shot and see what a Terry Southern version of Candide would look like.

As it turns out, it would look like a 60s porn film. Or like Barbarella without reputable acting or a requirement to pass censors....or even a hint of a plot.

Of course, it's also outdated and the depiction of clueless Candy Christian is relentlessly annoying when reading in show more this day and age.

Not for me. show less

Good Grief! Candy Christian is young, sweet, and beautiful. Candy is naive and she's selfless. All Candy wants is to give of herself. Which is good, because everybody--well, every man, at least--seems to need Candy. All except her daddy, that is.

Candy, the novel, is the story of Candy, the girl's, path to enlightenment.

Candy's journey begins with Professor Mephesto, the first of a series of deep and learned men at whose feet she will sit and whose wisdom she will absorb. Professor Mephesto show more not only teaches Candy that to give of oneself, fully, is the greatest privilege there is; he also gives her the opportunity to give of herself to him.

Candy then extends her gift to the Mexican gardener. And to her uncle Jack--Good Grief, he's Daddy's identical twin! And when her journey of enlightenment takes her from Racine to New York's Boho streets, she finds a drooling, muttering hunchback also in need of her gift.

Ultimately, Candy's journey takes her to Tibet, and there we discover that the whole book was the long and meandering set up for a disgusting, inevitable, and truly hilarious punchline. Oh, Good Grief... show less

Pretty entertaining .... thought perhaps even a bit too sex rompy / pornographic for my taste. Straightforward, salacious, leering updating of Candide, but w/o the thoughtful part- just the relentless outrage of the innocent repeatedly taken advantage of by the randy men who cross her path. Often funny, but dwindlingly outrageous due to repeated violations of this sweet girls good intentions and desire for a deeper reality. That could have made it more thoughtful- more of the satire of the show more intellectual pretensions of the young smart set. show less