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Title: Candide (AmazonClassics Edition)
Author: Voltaire
Narrator: James Langton
Format: Unabridged
Length: 3 hrs and 54 mins
Language: English
Release date: 12-22-17
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Genres: Classics, European Literature
Publisher's Summary:
Candide, the illegitimate nephew of a German baron and student of eternal optimist Pangloss, is living a simple and sheltered life in "the best of all possible worlds."
But when Candide falls in love with the wrong woman, his uncle's young daughter, he is exiled from the baron's castle and suffers great tragedy and catastrophe, which leaves him disillusioned and questioning the goodness of the universe.
Penned in just three days - and published in secret because of its blasphemous and seditious nature - Voltaire's legendary satire deftly skewers religious, romantic, and political naïveté with an acerbic and ribald wit that delights to this day.
Revised edition: Previously published as Candide, this edition of Candide (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.
Members Reviews:
The most cheerful tale of human suffering you'll ever find
Candide is amazing! Love, love, loved this book. Candide is a celebration of all the misery that being human has to offer, which sounds weird to say but it absolutely true. Witty, almost impossibly creativity, and surprisingly insightful.
Forget the slog of reading another "classic" that moves at the pace of molasses and requires a thesaurus and sparknotes app, Candide is eminently readable and impressively buoyant for a book that deals with graphic violence, sexual assault, and every assortment of human miseries imaginable. I laughed out loud multiple times, which earned me strange looks from the librarian, trying saying the same about the work of any other 17th century French philosopher.
Candide also functions as a piece of proper philosophy in addition to pure entertainment. The payoff at the end to "Tend your own garden" is perennially good advice, especially if you happen to follow US politics (sorry, but I just went there).
"Work then without disputing, it is the only way to render life supportable.â
PS. The careful reader will also note that the meaning of the word "ravish" has changed significantly over the centuries.
An imaginative satire
I read Candide when I was a teenager. I was surprised to learn I actually read only the first book. The very short book two caught me by surprise! I enjoyed it, though I thought book one was by far superior to book two. Maybe that's why the second book was not included in the version I read years ago.
Candide is a classic, and it deserves to be. Whatever is, is right? Not to Voltaire. Candide and his several companions encounter catastrophe everywhere, yet Candide travels around the world clinging (somewhat reluctantly) to Dr. Pangloss' outlook that this is the best of all possible worlds. Candide's friends die, and then miraculously return to life and just happen to cross paths with Candide. Beautiful people turn ugly and back to beautiful again. Candide receives riches only to be bilked out of them. The improbable becomes commonplace.
This is a fun book. It's short and pretty easy to read. I just wish I enjoyed it as much at my second reading!
A great work of satire, pithy, and easy to read
Itâs a parody of Optimism as a philosophy. Voltaire mocks Candideâs nave optimism, but itâs not clear to me what his true beliefs are from a simple reading of the text. Voltaire may ridicule Optimism as simplistic, but he doesnât offer anything in its place. Candide has successes and failures that seem passive rather than intentional.
