Candide: Or Optimism (Penguin Classics)
by Voltaire
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Book Summary Information
Author: VoltaireTranslator: John Butt
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1950-06-30
ISBN: 0140440046
Number of pages: 144
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of Candide: Or Optimism (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: Candide
Summary: 5 Stars
In Candide, Voltaire opens the door to self-discovery and the search for a true God by closing the door on what we perceive to be reality. With an unmatched wit he sets up an increasingly impossible series of events that force us to see with unlidded eye the ludicrousness of our attempts to reject that which is present and real, for that which is outside of us and fantastical. If his intention was to show the pain that is evident in all of our lives, he has succeeded. If it was to show to what considerable distance we as a people will go to avoid pain, he has again succeeded. The character I most identify with in Candide is the central character in the story, Candide. We can see the effects that his experiences with other people and their philosophies have had on his life. Candide, from the French candida, means "white." This may suggest that he begins life as "a blank page," a yet undefined form.
At one time, we are all born a "blank page"; our existence is marked with no blemish, no experience that has defined who we are. Our minds are in essence candida. Yet, looking back into my past and opening up the pages of my existence, I can ever more clearly that I am not a self-made man. Personal experiences, past and present contacts with individuals, institutions and society have combined their respective influences and written that combination which is me, on my blank page. It is no longer white, but stained with the indelible ink of experience.
As Candide's story progresses, we can see clearly how his pages are being written, step by step. Few of those pages in Candide's life are filled with what we might consider to be positive events. He begins as a young impressionable boy listening to the philosophy of those around him. Unfortunately, he has the estimable Dr. Pangloss, whose name literally means "all tongue," as the tutor and former of his mind. He says that all things happen for a reason; therefore, it must be the best reason. In essence, Pangloss teaches Candide that the reason for his and others' suffering is for the greater societal good.
How many of those persons who have influenced the person that I am today have been "all tongue"? Throughout my life, I have heard from every shade tree philosopher, "There is a reason for everything." I would be inclined to agree with them if, by that statement, they mean that every cause has an effect. That is however, not the case. Like Pangloss, they are ascribing the "cause" to an entity, a God, or force outside of themselves as individuals and society. This excuses us from many things. One of those things that it excuses us from is responsibility. If things cannot be other than they are then my part, my action, was preordained and consequently I am not responsible for the effects of those actions. Voltaire saw that these people who spoke so often of a God, who was alive and called each of us to "personal responsibility," were at the same time ascribing the "cause and effect" of their actions to Him. Candide was the vehicle that Voltaire used to show the mutual exclusivity of the belief in Free Will and Absolute Necessity.
I can really identify with the questions that Candide asks in the midst of his suffering. After a series of painful experiences that Dr. "Paingloss" Pangloss covers over with his "Indispensable" defense, Candide is inclined to ask: "If this is the best of all possible worlds, then what can the rest be like?" I hear him saying that, if this is the best of all possible worlds, then why would anyone want more? When people tell me that there is a reason for everything, with the purpose of glossing over my pain, and that we will all find out in the "by and by," I wonder what prevents them from finding "sufficient reason" to expedite their own end and thereby to circumvent the pleasure, pain and reality that they are in actuality trying to escape.
Voltaire shows us that we all undoubtedly will suffer. Through his farcical style we see the reality of Candide's suffering. We are also made to see that the pain that he is suffering is suffered at the hands of man and nature. We see that Candide is being led through life by the will of others and that a large part of his suffering is brought on by because he is reacting to life rather than acting upon it. Candide does not see himself or others as an initiator of his pain. He still holds to Pangloss' philosophy that everything is for the best.
In reality I have never believed that everything was for the best, yet like Candide I have spent a majority of my life in reaction rather than action. As I suspect is true with Pangloss, I have built up a series of impenetrable defenses. At one time in my life they protected me from that which I could not comprehend, and hence had some value. They were a reaction to experiences that I could not explain away. Yet as time passed, the defenses that had served me so well began to become increasing invalid with each experience that broadened my horizons.
While Candide was still a resident of the greatest Hall, owned by the greatest Baron, who was married to the greatest Baroness, who had the most seductive daughter, as well as a son who was naturally worthy of his father, who were all taught by the greatest teacher in the town and "consequently the greatest in all the world," his defenses served him well, for there were no experiences that could invalidate the theory that Pangloss was teaching. When these things were taken from Candide, Pangloss' theory did not protect him from real physical or emotional pain. But protection was never its intention. I have never needed protection from anything that did not exist. What people are attempting to do is eliminate suffering from existence. If Candide could only repeat Pangloss enough, then his emotional pain would disappear. He could invalidate pain as a feeling.
A lot of people in my life have tried to teach me the same thing. It is not enough that they don't have to feel. Their lives can never be safe as long as the world is inhabited by people who do. Our contact with these people threatens their faux peace. When we cry out, they close the doors. When we are angry, they smile. When someone dies, we mourn in their midst as they say that God is going to make something good come out of this. What a hopeless world we are in when life cannot be other than it is. It would lead me to the greatest of desperations if I could not affect my life, for better or worse, by a thoughtful action.
We all want the answers to the questions that suffering naturally brings. Why did this happen to me? Why will it not stop? How can I make it go away? I too have asked all of these questions and attempted to find the answers. I think that Voltaire knew that pain was unavoidable. I think he knew that we had not the power to control the world. He showed clearly that our choices are the determiner of our actions, that Free Will and natural disaster are the determiners of cause and effect. Not only will we try to alter reality so that it does not conflict with our opinions, but we punish, condemn, excommunicate and kill those who do not see our "reality" as being real.
Why then do we ask why pain exists? Why do we ask to stop it? We are constantly throwing punches at those who we believe are of a lower social standard, of differing religious beliefs, dress differently than we do, or are of different color, yet still ascribe these actions as being the way things are meant to be. Do we not see that those punches are a source of pain for those at which they are aimed? Voltaire had "sufficient reason" to question the ludicrousness of this still commonly held belief. Candide's experience, although farcical, is consistent with the pain that we all feel and that we all try to escape. Voltaire asks us to look at the world with a realistic view. If we hold onto beliefs that we ascribe to whatever God we believe in, even though those beliefs are inconsistent with reality and in most cases contrary to the beliefs of our respective creator, we are voiding any real power that He has, and actually increase that pain which we are trying to eliminate.
Summary of Candide: Or Optimism (Penguin Classics)
"Candide" is the story of a gentle man who, though pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds." On the surface a witty, bantering tale, this eighteenth-century classic is actually a savage, satiric thrust at the philosophical optimism that proclaims that all disaster and human suffering is part of a benevolent cosmic plan. Fast, funny, often outrageous, the French philosopher's immortal narrative takes Candide around the world to discover that -- contrary to the teachings of his distringuished tutor Dr. Pangloss -- all is not always for the best. Alive with wit, brilliance, and graceful storytelling, "Candide" has become Voltaire's most celebrated work.Political satire doesn't age well, but occasionally a diatribe contains enough art and universal mirth to survive long after its timeliness has passed. Candide is such a book. Penned by that Renaissance man of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, Candide is steeped in the political and philosophical controversies of the 1750s. But for the general reader, the novel's driving principle is clear enough: the idea (endemic in Voltaire's day) that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and apparent folly, misery and strife are actually harbingers of a greater good we cannot perceive, is hogwash.
Telling the tale of the good-natured but star-crossed Candide (think Mr. Magoo armed with deadly force), as he travels the world struggling to be reunited with his love, Lady Cunegonde, the novel smashes such ill-conceived optimism to splinters. Candide's tutor, Dr. Pangloss, is steadfast in his philosophical good cheer, in the face of more and more fantastic misfortune; Candide's other companions always supply good sense in the nick of time. Still, as he demolishes optimism, Voltaire pays tribute to human resilience, and in doing so gives the book a pleasant indomitability common to farce. Says one character, a princess turned one-buttocked hag by unkind Fate: "I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most melancholy propensities; for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one's very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?"--Michael Gerber
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