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arggimapirate 's review for:
Candide
by Voltaire
I read this in high school and, while waiting for my library holds to come in, thought it would be a good, short read to revisit. And it was!
Definitely more interesting now as an adult, and specifically as an optimist who truly, genuinely believed in the general goodness of humanity all the way up until 2016, when that faith began to decline with the election of Trump and rapidly eroded as we saw the behavior of people during the pandemic.
The story of Candide, who is blindly optimistic under the tutelage of Pangloss, brought to mind the book Bright-Sided: How Optimistic Thinking is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich - a good read for anyone interested in these themes.
While I still consider myself an optimist, or at least someone who is generally willing to atrribute to stupidity that which may first be ascribed to malice, I think a more tempered view of the reality that things DON'T always work out, and things AREN'T always for the best, and you CAN'T always depend on the kindess of strangers is the more pragmatic way to live.
In short, as a young teenager I thought this was a silly and outrageous story of travels and the ebbs and flows of good luck. The biggest thing I remembered going in to the reread was there was a woman with half a butt.
As an adult, I can appreciate the general theme that it's dumb to pretend life isn't hard and cruel at times, but it is still worthwhile to own as much as you can of your own fate, remain kind, and stay generous. Or at least that's my takeaway today, let's see what I think in another 25 years!
Definitely more interesting now as an adult, and specifically as an optimist who truly, genuinely believed in the general goodness of humanity all the way up until 2016, when that faith began to decline with the election of Trump and rapidly eroded as we saw the behavior of people during the pandemic.
The story of Candide, who is blindly optimistic under the tutelage of Pangloss, brought to mind the book Bright-Sided: How Optimistic Thinking is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich - a good read for anyone interested in these themes.
While I still consider myself an optimist, or at least someone who is generally willing to atrribute to stupidity that which may first be ascribed to malice, I think a more tempered view of the reality that things DON'T always work out, and things AREN'T always for the best, and you CAN'T always depend on the kindess of strangers is the more pragmatic way to live.
In short, as a young teenager I thought this was a silly and outrageous story of travels and the ebbs and flows of good luck. The biggest thing I remembered going in to the reread was there was a woman with half a butt.
As an adult, I can appreciate the general theme that it's dumb to pretend life isn't hard and cruel at times, but it is still worthwhile to own as much as you can of your own fate, remain kind, and stay generous. Or at least that's my takeaway today, let's see what I think in another 25 years!