A review by dyno8426
Candide by Voltaire

3.0

Voltaire has created a parody of a romantic and an optimist through this funny, fast and succinct book - a modern satire on the philosophical optimism of our inhabited world being "the best of all possible worlds", under the design and will of some metaphysical power like "God". The force of cynicism is strong with this one. Gods across cultures and history have taken precedence and responsibility to man's actions and relieved them of the moral responsibility to some extent. By presenting a continuous degradation of the protagonist Candide, as he travels around the world in the cycles of hopes and despair over his pursued love of Cunegonde, the author puts the classic contradiction of all existing misery, suffering and evil of the world against the watchful eyes of a benevolent God or a meaningful, pleasure-filled playground of humans to play upon. Candide's journey and all the fellow travellers he encounters on his way are all sufferers of violence, deceit, greed, molestation, selfishness, cruelty, dishonesty, and all other sorts of vices the extremes of which have made life unbearable and metaphorical hell on earth for some. The pervasiveness of evil in human beings without a counterbalance of reinforcing morality is hopeless, and definitely irreconcilable in the realm of optimism. Despite continuous challenges to Candide's philosophical teachings, he stubbornly tethers himself to the ledge of optimism, resting on a "grander design" at some metaphysical level, trying not to fall in the abyss of a meaning-devoid existence. His ridiculous devotion to such a placating thought is heightened to levels of irrationality when he gives up a happily fulfilled future in an almost perfect place just in the pursuit of his ever-pursued vision of beauty. There is a strong enough analogy with anything religious that has divided and destroyed civilisations - largely due to differences in their answers on the topic of leading happy and meaningful lives. The author has wittily criticised all the terrible examples of religious and political leaders from his time and even personally ridiculed few of his competitors and unabashedly and tacitly. The book calls out the pervasive hypocrisy in the value of undeserving things, which again ties up with the dishonesty that human condition supports to hide the vacuity of anything worthy. The book closes in a strange enough, almost absurdist way according to me where, having gone through all the troubles and losing all that he ever wanted and once-acquired that could have made him happy, Candide and some of his fellow sufferers fall back to the modesty of "tending their gardens" - an unclear symbol to me, but tending on the lines of Sisyphus-like tasks that will never appear meaningful unless we reconcile to the absurdity of this burden of life.

“What is this optimism?” said Cacambo.
“Alas!” said Candide, “it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong.”

“Master,” said he, “we come to beg you to tell why so strange an animal as man was made.”
“With what meddlest thou?” said the Dervish; “is it thy business?”
“But, reverend father,” said Candide, “there is horrible evil in this world.”
“What signifies it,” said the Dervish, “whether there be evil or good? When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not?”

“But for what end, then, has this world been formed?” said Candide.
“To plague us to death,” answered Martin.