Customer Reviews

CANDIDE

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This is a darling little book by Voltaire. The Original Voltaire, who the musician took his name from... though the original Voltaire wasn't originally named that either...

After getting far too mad at The Witching Hour to keep reading it at the moment, this is soooooo refreshing! It's an 18th century French classic; clever, funny, and extremely streamlined. It's short and to the point. The thing reads more like a plot outline than an actual book and that's looking pretty damn good right about now. I've been reading for ten minutes and I'm finished chapter 2.

Later.... In chapter 4 the philosopher gets an STD and tells about the long line of people who passed it on to one another up to him, including someone who "owed it to a marquise". Now he won't be able to pass it on "because I'm dying". In one part Candide walks over bodies, "the ground was strewn with brains and severed arms and legs", but it's not treated in a way to be the least bit significant. Terrible things keep happening and nobody seems to care. "When his treatment (an enema) was over, he had lost only an eye and an ear". It's such hilariously dry humor, I love it. It's like this book is a direct French ancestor of Monty Python.

These are my first impressions, let's see how things turn out.

Candide est l'un des importants classiques provenant de l'héritage des Lumières. À la fois drôle et instructif, ce court roman rempli d'action entraîne le lecteur dans une série de réflections sur l'optimisme, le pessimisme et le rôle du monde.

Le roman se veut un récit des multiples aventures du jeune Candide qui, expulsé par son père du merveilleux château familial de Thunder-ten-tronckh, est entraîné par le sort (et par son amour pour la belle Cunégonde) dans un voyage qui lui fera visiter à la fois l'Europe et l'Amérique du Sud. À mesure que Candide verra l'ampleur des diverses catastrophes qui s'acharnent sur la terre, il subira une transformation psychologique importante : alors qu'au début de l'histoire, il est résolument optimiste (un héritage de Pangloss, son instructeur), il deviendra, au rythme de ses péripéties, de plus en plus pessimiste et en arrivera à conclure, à la toute fin du roman, que seul le travail valorise l'être humain.

Candide est écrit dans un style simple, facile à comprendre, mais agrémenté d'action constante, d'un rythme surréel. Court d'une centaine de pages, c'est un livre qui m'a procuré beaucoup de satisfaction.

I enjoyed the tale of Candide,written by Voltaire in 1759.Voltaire blames human foolishness and unfairness.Every reader should be fascinated by this wonderful story,thanks to an author who is at the same time ironic and realistic because he draws his inspiration from real facts.

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