Candide: Zadig and Selected Stories

This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. A great story and important historical work in literature. Voltaire was a Renaissance Christian humanist who played a role in the development of the Enlightenment. On the one hand, the structure of his novel Candide is Homeric, it is the journey narrative, the hero with a thousand faces, but it is a satirical restructuring of that classical motif of the hero on a quest. What is the importance of the quest in Candide? What is the quest about in the classical sense? The quest is about learning. In the classical sense the hero leaves, has to acquire some sort of knowledge, learn a set of skills that is going to help him or her enact the quest surmount the obstacles that they encounter at one point or another, and the finally what does the hero have to accomplish? What is out there the "Holy Grail" The prize, the whole quest is about attaining some sort of ultimate end or some sort of ultimate knowledge. Does it end there? No, you got to go back with that knowledge, because the quest is never just about attaining the goal, it's about bringing it home to make everybody better, to restore the community. The individual quest, the heroic quest in the classical sense always has a larger social corrective end. The purpose of the individual, the function of the individual all depends on his ability to return to the collective, whatever it is that he has found that he has acquired that is going to change the way things are. Now how does that compare to the journey or quest narrative in Candide? Contrary to the notion of what prepares us for the world, OK here is the important structure of the journey or the quest, and the critique of knowledge by Voltaire. It is contrary to the idea of the knowledge that we acquire prepares us for the world. That each new bit of knowledge that we acquire, prepares us for the next step, and prepares us for the next stage. Contrary to the idea that life is somehow to be understood or that human history is somehow to be understood as a journey organized around progress, around betterment advancement acquiring new knowledge more knowledge more science more learning, we're getting better again, Candide tells the story that goes in the opposite direction. So, then you acquire knowledge and then you spend the rest of the journey finding out that the knowledge is useless, bit by bit, and every lesson you've acquired has to be cast aside, everything you learn you have to abandon. Instead of gaining and getting better, it is throwing off, letting go, and getting worse. Where does Voltaire want us in the end to think of the notion and narrative of progress? Of course, you know that Candide is steeped in so many of the political and philosophical controversies of the 1750's. One of his big critiques is of the philosopher Leibnitz who said that `this is the best of all possible worlds," the idea championed by Leibnitz was a simple version of the

If you are reading this, you probably know the merits of Voltaire's classic Candide; so I will comment on this particular translation and edition. Donald M. Frame's translation is the best in my view. Frame also wrote the introduction to the 1961 Signet printing. John Iverson supplies the introduction to the new (2001) printing. In addition to Frame's lively translation, and Iverson's introduction, this volume contains 15 other short works by Voltaire and helpful notes and a glossary. This is the best edition of Volataire's Candide that you can buy - and you can't beat the price of 5 bucks!

This Signet edition of Voltaire's finest works is THE Candide to buy. It has 15 other classic Voltaire works FIFTEEN!! Now that's a great deal without all the bells and whistles! I remember first being introduced to Voltaire (1694-1778) when I was looking ahead in my history book in school, as was my "pasttime" and was one of the ways how I became a trivial nerd who can name dates and events almost like Rain Man. His picture attracted me because of that smart-aleky grin always on his face. This was a bit surprising considering everyone took serious portraits in that time. Before long after starting to read this good stuff, you'll have a grin on your face too. The Age of Reason is where Marie-Francois Arouet, better known by the pen name of Voltaire comes from and it is the setting of one of the most famous satires of all time. Published in 1759, Voltaire takes apart the philisophical quote by Gottfried Lebniz (1646-1716) which states that, the seventeenth/eighteenth century was "The Best of all Possible Worlds." In Candide, the title naiive character is about to find out just how "great" an era the eighteenth century was. Next to Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)-whom Voltaire knew and admired, Candide is the most famous satire ever written. It has the best tragical irony and is combined to make it one very memorable and funny reading experience. It seems to me that the eighteenth century was just begging, bowing, scraping, and grovelling to be taken apart by satire and parody, and who would be better to expose the woes of its society than Voltaire, Swift, Alexander Pope (1688-1744), and all the rest of those satirizing cats?! Probably Mikhail Bulgakov and/or Nikolai Gogol, but those two cats were LATER. That brings us to the conclusion that there was NOBODY, THAT'S WHO!!!

Although, perhaps, it wasn't ment to be, Volatire's work is uplifting. Sometimes a man faces something that enraged him to such a depth, he either has to cry or laugh about it. Its good to be able to laugh about injustice, betrayal, and every other inborn, basic flaw of the pompous human race we all have the pleasure to be part of. This is one of the best satires I've ever read.

Candide is one of my most favorite philosophical works because of the humor, honesty, and original perspective that Voltaire brings to this story. This translation is recommended because it also contains many other excellent works from Voltaire, such as Zadig and Micromegas. The translator's notes are very helpful, and in many cases shed light upon Voltaire's intended meaning when the English is not able to convey everything.