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tombuoni 's review for:
Candide: Or Optimism
by Voltaire
A thought-provoking and easy-to-read classic recommended by my brother-in-law. After reading, I can’t believe I hadn’t read it before! It’s a very fun, witty, and adventurous satire, while making philosophical points along the way about the problem of evil and the absurdity of blind optimism - the faith that everything is designed for a reason and that everything naturally works out for the best. Candide (the character) is a nobleman who falls from grace and bumbles along, encountering tragedy after tragedy, until left with boredom… until he makes a resolution to stop trusting that things will happen for the better, and instead stops worrying and focuses on cultivating his own garden.
It reminded me a lot of a combination of the Book of Job and Don Quixote, with a little bit of the story of the Buddha. And it left me wondering about its influences on later works I’ve encountered like the cynicism of Game of Thrones, the plot of the film The Road to El Dorado, and the serial adventures in Around the World in 80 Days. Looking forward to learning more about it.
Here’s a few favorite passages:
“‘What is Optimism?’ asked Cacambo–‘Alas!’ said Candide, ‘it is the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well.’”
“This Baron [Candide] was one of the most powerful lords of Westphalia, for his castle had a gate and windows. His great hall was even hung with a tapestry. All the dogs in his barnyards made up a pack when the need arose; his stable boys served for huntsmen; the village parson officiated as his grand almoner. Everyone called him Your Grace, and everyone laughed at his jokes.”
“A fellow being [has] two legs, no feathers and a soul;”
“why not amuse yourself and invite each passenger to tell his story; if you find a single one of them who has not repeatedly cursed his existence, who has not repeatedly told himself that he is the unhappiest man alive, then you may throw me into the sea head first.’”
“Candide was indefatigable in his questioning by proxy of this worthy old gentleman; he wanted to know how one prayed to God in Eldorado. ‘We do not pray to him at all,’ said the honourable sage. ‘We have nothing to ask of him; he has given us everything we need; we thank him unceasingly.’.. “Each one of these answers sent Candide into raptures, and he said to himself: ‘This is a far cry from Westphalia and my lord the Baron’s castle: had our friend Pangloss seen Eldorado, he would not have kept saying that the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh was the best place on earth; clearly, one has to travel in this world.’”
“When you are reasonably happy somewhere, you should stay put.”
“‘But have you been to Paris, Monsieur Martin?’–‘Yes, I’ve been to Paris; it combines all of the above categories; it is a chaos, a throng in which everyone pursues pleasure and almost no one finds it, or at least so it seemed to me.”
“The man of taste explained very clearly how a play can be of some interest but of almost no merit. He showed in few words how it was not enough to contrive one or two of those situations that are to be found in any novel and which always captivate the audience; that one needs to be original without being far-fetched, frequently sublime but always natural; to know the human heart but also how to give it a voice; to be a poet without one’s characters seeming to speak like poets; and to have perfect command of the language, using it with purity and harmony, and without ever sacrificing sense to rhyme.”
“Candide, seeing a magnificently bound copy of Homer, complimented the illustrious nobleman on his good taste. ‘This book,’ he said, ‘was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the finest philosopher in Germany.’–‘Well, it fails to delight me,’ said Pococuranté coolly. ‘At one time I was deluded into believing I took pleasure in reading it; but that endless recital of battles which are all the same, those gods who are always interfering but never do anything, that Helen of his who is the cause of the war but then plays scarcely any part in the action, and that Troy which they keep besieging without ever taking–it all used to make me weep with boredom. I used to ask scholars if reading Homer bored them as much as it bored me; the honest ones admitted that the book dropped from their hands every time, but said one had to have it in one’s library, as a monument of antiquity, like those rusty coins which cannot be put into circulation.’”
“‘Now tell us this, my dear Pangloss,’ said Candide. ‘While you were being hanged, and dissected, and beaten, and made to row in a galley, did you continue to believe that all was for the best?’–‘I hold firmly to my original views,’ replied Pangloss. ‘I am a philosopher after all: it would not do for me to recant.”
“Pangloss deceived me cruelly, after all, when he told me that all is for the best in this world.”
“As for Martin, he was firmly persuaded that people are equally miserable wherever they are; he took things as they came.”
“‘So what must we do?’ said Pangloss.–‘Keep your mouth shut,’ said the dervish.–‘I flattered myself,’ said Pangloss, ‘that you and I might have a little discussion about effects and causes, about the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, pre-established harmony …’–At which the dervish slammed the door in their faces.”
“‘You must have a vast and magnificent estate,’ said Candide to the Turk.–‘I have but twenty acres,’ replied the Turk. ‘I cultivate them with my children; our work keeps at bay the three great evils: boredom, vice, and necessity.’”
“‘All I know,’ said Candide, ‘is that we must cultivate our garden.’”
— Candide: Or Optimism by Francois Voltaire
https://a.co/0UJHJNR
It reminded me a lot of a combination of the Book of Job and Don Quixote, with a little bit of the story of the Buddha. And it left me wondering about its influences on later works I’ve encountered like the cynicism of Game of Thrones, the plot of the film The Road to El Dorado, and the serial adventures in Around the World in 80 Days. Looking forward to learning more about it.
Here’s a few favorite passages:
“‘What is Optimism?’ asked Cacambo–‘Alas!’ said Candide, ‘it is the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well.’”
“This Baron [Candide] was one of the most powerful lords of Westphalia, for his castle had a gate and windows. His great hall was even hung with a tapestry. All the dogs in his barnyards made up a pack when the need arose; his stable boys served for huntsmen; the village parson officiated as his grand almoner. Everyone called him Your Grace, and everyone laughed at his jokes.”
“A fellow being [has] two legs, no feathers and a soul;”
“why not amuse yourself and invite each passenger to tell his story; if you find a single one of them who has not repeatedly cursed his existence, who has not repeatedly told himself that he is the unhappiest man alive, then you may throw me into the sea head first.’”
“Candide was indefatigable in his questioning by proxy of this worthy old gentleman; he wanted to know how one prayed to God in Eldorado. ‘We do not pray to him at all,’ said the honourable sage. ‘We have nothing to ask of him; he has given us everything we need; we thank him unceasingly.’.. “Each one of these answers sent Candide into raptures, and he said to himself: ‘This is a far cry from Westphalia and my lord the Baron’s castle: had our friend Pangloss seen Eldorado, he would not have kept saying that the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh was the best place on earth; clearly, one has to travel in this world.’”
“When you are reasonably happy somewhere, you should stay put.”
“‘But have you been to Paris, Monsieur Martin?’–‘Yes, I’ve been to Paris; it combines all of the above categories; it is a chaos, a throng in which everyone pursues pleasure and almost no one finds it, or at least so it seemed to me.”
“The man of taste explained very clearly how a play can be of some interest but of almost no merit. He showed in few words how it was not enough to contrive one or two of those situations that are to be found in any novel and which always captivate the audience; that one needs to be original without being far-fetched, frequently sublime but always natural; to know the human heart but also how to give it a voice; to be a poet without one’s characters seeming to speak like poets; and to have perfect command of the language, using it with purity and harmony, and without ever sacrificing sense to rhyme.”
“Candide, seeing a magnificently bound copy of Homer, complimented the illustrious nobleman on his good taste. ‘This book,’ he said, ‘was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the finest philosopher in Germany.’–‘Well, it fails to delight me,’ said Pococuranté coolly. ‘At one time I was deluded into believing I took pleasure in reading it; but that endless recital of battles which are all the same, those gods who are always interfering but never do anything, that Helen of his who is the cause of the war but then plays scarcely any part in the action, and that Troy which they keep besieging without ever taking–it all used to make me weep with boredom. I used to ask scholars if reading Homer bored them as much as it bored me; the honest ones admitted that the book dropped from their hands every time, but said one had to have it in one’s library, as a monument of antiquity, like those rusty coins which cannot be put into circulation.’”
“‘Now tell us this, my dear Pangloss,’ said Candide. ‘While you were being hanged, and dissected, and beaten, and made to row in a galley, did you continue to believe that all was for the best?’–‘I hold firmly to my original views,’ replied Pangloss. ‘I am a philosopher after all: it would not do for me to recant.”
“Pangloss deceived me cruelly, after all, when he told me that all is for the best in this world.”
“As for Martin, he was firmly persuaded that people are equally miserable wherever they are; he took things as they came.”
“‘So what must we do?’ said Pangloss.–‘Keep your mouth shut,’ said the dervish.–‘I flattered myself,’ said Pangloss, ‘that you and I might have a little discussion about effects and causes, about the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, pre-established harmony …’–At which the dervish slammed the door in their faces.”
“‘You must have a vast and magnificent estate,’ said Candide to the Turk.–‘I have but twenty acres,’ replied the Turk. ‘I cultivate them with my children; our work keeps at bay the three great evils: boredom, vice, and necessity.’”
“‘All I know,’ said Candide, ‘is that we must cultivate our garden.’”
— Candide: Or Optimism by Francois Voltaire
https://a.co/0UJHJNR