"Candide" by Voltaire

If you liked ‘Don Quixote’ or ‘The Alchemist’, you’ll enjoy ‘Candide’.

My personal opinion of the genre of ‘fables’ is that unless one is intimately familiar with the author’s biography and is sufficiently versed in history, books like ‘Don Quixote’, ‘The Alchemist’, or ‘Candide’ should only be read before bedtime and to an audience of no older than 12 years of age.

Like any other fable, ‘Candide’ raises a few of the basic questions of life: wealth, the issues of free will, religion, optimism in the hardest of times, metaphysics of life and of course - love. Expect that a lot is hidden behind the names of the numerous characters introduced by Voltaire. Some of the examples the author uses do not sit well with me – take the one with the raping Bulgarian warriors and their king (by the time the book was written, Bulgaria was into its 400th year of Ottoman slavery without any kings or queens). At times the book drags, especially with Candide’s endless voyages, or recount of impossible stories.

I’d rather reread ‘The Stranger’ by Camus than read this one for the first time.

- by Simon Cleveland