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#1 |
Bah, humbug!
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September 2015 Discussion: Candide (spoilers)
The time has come to discuss the September 2015 MobileRead Book Club selection, Candide by Voltaire. What did you think?
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#2 |
Wizard
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I feel really bad I haven't had a chance to read this yet. My family and I all got sick last week and no reading was accomplished. Hopefully I will get to if after this week but I have a long library book due early the next week which I need to read first.
I do plan on reading it though. |
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#3 |
(he/him/his)
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Fortunately, it's a short read. I "get" it, but I'm not sure I enjoyed it. Which is not to say that I think we shouldn't have read it. A worthy book to have read, and I can certainly see why it fits this month's category.
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#4 |
Bah, humbug!
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This was (at least) the third time for me reading Candide but the first time as an audiobook. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but can't help but feel Voltaire may have been poking fun at some unknown (to me) author's writing style as well as the Church, Leibniz, and pretty much everyone else in the world. The story itself was so wildly improbable, with extreme and frequent swings of fortune, people dying only to discover later that they had miraculously escaped death, and improbably timed events. This book was all over the place, but it was always a fun journey. Its breathless pace reminded me somewhat of Mark's Gospel. Perhaps the anonymous author of that gospel was the unknown author he was targeting with his wit.
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#5 | |
Guru
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Quote:
![]() ![]() Last edited by din155; 09-21-2015 at 09:06 AM. |
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#6 |
Nameless Being
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I am always amused by Voltaire's wit whenever I read this (reread Lowell Bair's translation). How can one not love passages like this:
Spoiler:
Yes, the way that all the character's, especially Pangloss, manage to survive to the end is part of the fun of it. Maybe of interest to some but this biography of Voltaire by Ian Davidson is on my to read list. |
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#7 | |
Home Guard
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I had been reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy over the last couple of years so I was somewhat familiar with Leibniz' philosophy.
When I read the first chapter my first thought was a quote from James Branch Cabell's The Silver Stallion. Quote:
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#8 |
languorous autodidact ✦
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It was even more cartoonish and far-fetched than I was expecting but I enjoyed the adventure of it and found it funny and witty. I can see why it was such a hit in its day and why it was banned. Some of the best humourous bits were the early passage describing Cunegonde finding her teacher giving a lesson in nature, the various allusions to her brother’s relations with men and the old maid often finding a reason to mention her missing buttock. For different reasons I also really liked El Dorado.
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#9 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Agreed with the cartoonish and far-fetched. It was just a dullard of a read for me because of the conveniences of lack of plot. Perhaps I was probably expecting something a little more subtle.
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#10 | ||||||
Bah, humbug!
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There are so many memorable lines in this short work. Here are a handful of my favorites (in no particular order):
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#11 |
Wizard
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I read this book a long time ago and this time I got more out of it but at the same time became more aware of its limitations. It doesn't develop character in a novelistic fashion but instead presents a series of episodes created to show how bad things are.
Certainly the book had passages of great satiric power reminiscent of Swift and like Swift these sections are still quite relevant. I refer to Voltaire's deeply misanthropic portrait of the corruption of society and the cruelty and inhumanity of war. His vision is essentially tragic. In the end there is little left but to endure. More dated is his attack on the optimistic philosophical Deism of the Neoclassical writers. Few would agree with Alexander Pope's assessment that "Whatever is, is right." Thus a considerable amount of satiric bombardment is aimed at empty trenches. Still, Voltaire stands with Swift as one of the great satirists in European Literature. |
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#12 |
Guru
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Agree. At about the 25% mark, the repetitive fantastical got to me: "Same old same old--do I want to subject myself to more of this?" and stopped reading.
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#13 |
(he/him/his)
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As a writer, I use repetition for emphasis. But, for me, this got really boring and annoying after about the 1/3rd mark. I had gotten the point, and was just being annoyed.
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#14 |
Wizard
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I read the 2005 translation by Theo Cuffe (thanks for the recommendation, issybird). That may have made some difference.
Satire that is more than 250 years old doesn’t always travel well, because we live in such a different world. In Voltaire’s world, writers did not publish the crimes and follies of the ruling classes; there are good reasons why Voltaire lived so often in Switzerland or near the Swiss border. Candide was shocking at the time, simply because it was published and distributed; it would have been regarded as a libel of God’s Church and the rulers appointed by God. Perhaps that is why, living in a world where the rich and powerful are thin and poor people are obese, the line “The Baroness, who weighed approximately three hundred and fifty pounds, and consequently basked in very great esteem...” seems odd, Voltaire meant it to be funny. Likewise, in a Germany bursting with petty nobles, “The Baron was one of the most powerful lords of Westphalia, for his castle had a gate and windows”. Still, there are some great lines in this book, which kept me reading. For example, at Candide’s auto-da-fe: “...they walked in procession, and listened to a most affecting sermon, followed by a delightful piece of plainchant monotony. Candide was flogged in cadence to the singing...”. Cunegonde revisits that in her reunion with Candide: “...my mind was spinning...with the hanging of Dr.Pangloss, and that great plainchant miserere they intoned while you were being flogged”. Then there is the brilliant satire of “...inserted their fingers into that orifice...it is a custom established from time immemorial among the civilized seafaring nations...It is one article of international law that is never neglected.” and, of the Jesuit Paraguay missions, “Los Padres own everything, and the people own the rest; it is a masterpiece of justice and reason.” Last edited by bfisher; 09-25-2015 at 11:05 AM. |
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#15 |
Bah, humbug!
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What bfisher said. I've enjoyed Candide every time I've read it, which is not something I can say for other classics, or even modern writing.
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