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| Candide (Penguin popular classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Voltaire
Creator: Norman Cameron
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £2.00
Buy New: £0.01
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 8367
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 112
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.5
ISBN: 0140623035
EAN: 9780140623031
ASIN: 0140623035
Publication Date: September 27, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW and IN STOCK - dispatched within 48 hours from the UK
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Essential October 20, 2008
Thought provoking, heartwarming and frequently hilarious novel.
Should be required reading for everyone, unmissable.
The book I always reach for when I'm feeling down, provides an instant pick me up.
 Everything really is for the best! July 1, 2008
I thoroughly enjoyed this little gem by the much celebrated French philosopher. Slightly suprised by its short length and its relative tameness, I nonetheless loved the satirical view of the turbulent times in Europe in the 18th Century. I almost couldn't believe that it was written 250 years ago as it was so so sharp and snappy. The protagonist, Candide is a naive young man thrust on the world armed only with his belief in the popular philosophy of the time that "we live in the best of all possible worlds" which has been drummed into him by Dr Pangloss, who is a parody of German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. He repeats this optimimistic mantra throughout his travels round half the world, even when faced with ludicrous hardships, until his sufferings become so numerous and frequent that he becomes disilusioned.
Voltaire pokes fun at the government, the monarchy, religion, marriage and philosopy, and over the course of the book he dismantles the theory that "everything is for the best". The book is skillfully written, witty and fast paced. An absolute classic and a must read!
All is for the best in this world December 20, 2007
Candide is an ambitious book. It should be an example for all `would-be' writers all over the world. It is not less than a frontal attack on the greatest philosopher of Voltaire's time, Leibniz, for whom the world he lived in was `the best possible'.
'Dear Pangloss (= know everything), when you were hanged, dissected, cruelly beaten, did you still think that everything was for the best in this word?' `I still hold my original opinion', replied Pangloss, `since Leibniz cannot be wrong.'
This eventful text running with dazzling speed is a masterful mockery of Leibniz's philosophy with its `causes and effects', `sufficient reasons', `(non)contingent events', `freedoms and necessities', `(pre-established ) harmonies', `souls and evils' and `natural laws':
`You expect to eat a Jesuit today; nothing could be more just, for natural law teaches us to kill our neighbor. If we don't exercise the right to eat him, it's because we have other things to make a good meal of.'
Voltaire is a fundamental pessimist: `Men have always slaughtered each other; they have always been liars, traitors, ingrates and thieves, cowardly, envious, greedy, ambitious, bloodthirsty, slanderous, lecherous, fanatical, hypocritical and foolish.'
His philosophical solution is a flight from this brutal reality: `let's work without theorizing; it's the only way to make life bearable.' The only thing left is `cultivate our garden.'
This is a cowardly, selfish non-solution, to use Voltaire's own terms. Closing one's eyes for the realities of this world should not be an option.
But how did Voltaire cultivate his garden? He profited handsomely from the slave trade. He even agreed that a ship for slave transport was named after him! A not so magnificent example of gardening.
However, this brilliant `cooking' of a philosopher's key ideas is a must read for all lovers of world literature. It should be a challenge for all ambitious writers.
Worth the read... December 23, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This, my first real exposure to Voltaire was certainly an enlightening one. Candide is almost nonsensical fiction liberally sprinkeled with discussion of metaphysics. Candide, our protagonist, is banished from his childhood home after being seen to kiss the Baron's daughter and is forced into the world in a time of great turbulence armed only with the teachings of his tutor Pangolass and his theory of optimism. As he struggles to realise that all doesn't turn out for the best and that hard work is the best cure for philosphical musing he runs into an extraordinary array of characters from his childhood sweetheart to a woman who had to sacrifice one buttock to allow Janissery's under siege to survive. In admist his travels ranging from El Darado to Constantinople he slowly realises the meaning of life (or lack off) and the nature of man. Voltaire uses this novel as a satarical attack to ridicule those he was in contempt off and unfortunately many of the religious sects he turns his attention to have now faded into obscurity. Therefore for the modern day reader the end notes are a source of frequent consultation. Despite this constant flicking Candide is an enjoyable read and one worth pursuing.
Has the hand of time dulled Voltaire's rapier? November 12, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Ouch! That hurts!
(reacting to the sorry metaphor of my subject line)
I found Voltaire's famous satire surprisingly tepid. Perhaps I've become jaded in my old age, or perhaps I should have read this in the 18th century when it caused such a sensation because of the scandalous way that Voltaire satirized the church, the clergy, and just about everybody else in any position of power or influence. Reading it now, it seems a bit tame. All the horrors and stupidities Voltaire describes seem almost commonplace considering what we have experienced since he made his attack on optimism in 1759. Today we can look back at two world wars, at the Holocaust and Hiroshima, at the war in Vietnam, at terrorism and the latest stupidity in Iraq. Nothing in Candide can compare to these real historical events that have so sorely tested human optimism. We can even look back to the French Revolution and the revolutions that followed in the 19th century, which in a sense Voltaire predicted with his devastating critique of the corrupt and degenerate European society. Or we can recall the Catholic priests and Ted Haggard from yesterday's headlines. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
It is difficult to appreciate how deliciously scandalous this was in Voltaire's time since today we are free to criticize the church and our governments, whereas in Voltaire's time such criticisms could land you in the Bastille. Voltaire's legendary reputation for rapier wit and shocking turn of phrase can be found in these pages, but much of it seems diluted because his style has so often been imitated. We have read and reread his imitators, and we have even read some who have improved upon him in some ways, people in America like Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce and H. L. Mencken. We tend to forget where they got their inspiration at least in part. An example from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (episodic in structure much like Candide, by the way) is in the rascals that Huck and Jim meet on the river, the Duke of "Bilgewater" and the "King of France," who, like the six "kings" that Candide sups with in Venice, are out and our frauds and represent the impossible, deluded aspirations of the average person.
This is the work in which we have Dr. Pangloss and his "best of all possible worlds." And this is the work which ends with Candide summing up all the philosophy he has learned in his travels with the words, "'Tis well said, but we must cultivate our gardens."
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