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Title: Candide: A Dual-Language Book by Voltaire, Shane Weller ISBN: 0-486-27625-2 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 July, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (91 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Edutainment, 18th century style
Comment: Candide is a short satirical work that questions if this world is indeed the best of all possible worlds, as 'Liebniz's disciples' believed. Their uncaring verdict on the loss of lives from the earthquake in Lisbon coupled with their arrogance and lack of tact in the time of suffering was fuel for Voltaire's fire.
The book is fairly short and can be read in one sitting; it is laugh out loud funny in some places as the most absurd things happen to the major characters. I read it mostly because I like satire and not to get any particular message out of it. The story is pretty straightforward and I guess it does raise a few questions in the readers mind about what our purpose in this life is, how to find happiness, contentment etc... but it can also be read for the pleasure of 'listening' to one of the wittiest men that has ever lived (or so they tell me).
I have not done justice to this book, and you can read longer reviews about it on this site, but I would advice you to read it yourself and then make up your mind. Get the Penguin edition.
Again, read this book! It's short, it's funny and it's by Voltaire, what other encouragement do you need?
Rating: 4
Summary: The Best of All Worlds
Comment: Voltaire's short 1759 lampoon of the fashionable feel-good philosophies then making the rounds of Europe continues to bring a smile. It's not a literary masterpiece, but a quick and funny satire. In style, it reads something like Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", but its humor is more pointed and its satire more trenchant.
Candide is an illegitimate boy expelled from his adoptive home for kissing the Baron's daughter. A simple and candid man, he resolutely adheres to his tutor's absurd theory that "all is for the best". In coming years, Candide and everyone he meets suffer tortures, rapes, slavery, and death. Yet Candide remains ever the silly optimist, chasing the Baron's daughter around the world and giving Voltaire space to vent against the happy feel-good philosophers with their buzzwords, tautological reasoning, and empty aphorisms. The tutor, for example, demonstrates the "necessity" of syphillus, as having brought chocolate to Europe though "it is to be observed that this malady is, like religious controversy, peculiar to our continent".
Candide is a quick satire, silly and contrived, but we can read it with pleasure 250 later, long after the targets of Voltaire's wit have faded away.
Rating: 5
Summary: Finally A Book That Mirrors My Own Thoughts On The World
Comment: I had some hesitation about reading Candide but I found that this book has mirrored my own thoughts on how life is. That things aren't for the greater good, that with courage and persiverance that we can achieve our goals. That; it is best to cultivate one's own garden.
One thing; this book is very, very French. It is very Moliere, Diderot, etc. styled. It is ludicruous in some spots and so over the top.
Wonderful book.
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Title: Candide (Cliffs Notes) by Francois Marie Arouet, James K. Lowers ISBN: 0822002833 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 29 March, 1965 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli ISBN: 0553212788 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 September, 1984 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
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Title: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels ISBN: 0451527100 Publisher: Signet Classics Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque ISBN: 0449213943 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Portable Voltaire by Voltaire, Fran-Cois Maria Arouet De Voltaire, Ben Ray Redman ISBN: 0140150412 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1977 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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