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All timer. One of the only books I reread. Try to read every 5 years as it feels always like a commentary on modern times.
slow-paced
The moral of the story is great, but the actual story is horrifying.
This is like going through A Thousand Ways to Die and somehow being the lucky one that barely survives every single time (but actually not that lucky because pain and suffering still ensues).
It is an escalation of “well it can’t get much worse from here”. Voltaire will show you how it could always be worse.
The contrast of negative and positive thinking throughout the story is thought-provoking.
This is like going through A Thousand Ways to Die and somehow being the lucky one that barely survives every single time (but actually not that lucky because pain and suffering still ensues).
It is an escalation of “well it can’t get much worse from here”. Voltaire will show you how it could always be worse.
The contrast of negative and positive thinking throughout the story is thought-provoking.
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
" 'I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?'
'That is a hard question,' said Candide. "
2nd Reading.
'That is a hard question,' said Candide. "
2nd Reading.
adventurous
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Reading Candide in the 21st century is the extreme version of watching a very old, very popular sitcom. You'll switch between laughing at Voltaire's unparalleled wit to amazement at how much of his writing is still relevant to confusion at jokes whose context is no longer common knowledge to cringing at outdated assumptions about social others.
The book is about getting out and seing the rest of the world. Experiencing its ups and downs. It is about being torn between embracing the reality or still believing that all is well and marvelous.
But in the end, the decision is still within the person, whether s/he sees the glass as half empty or half full.
But in the end, the decision is still within the person, whether s/he sees the glass as half empty or half full.
slow-paced
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective