On "Candide" by Voltaire ****

I first/last read this back around 1991, as part of a world literature class. I must have thought well enough of it to have kept the book all these years. Periodically, now, I go back and read books in my personal library, in part as an effort to weed materials out and shrink my library and also give space to newer books, for which there is no room. This one will probably be one I jettison, but not because I did not like it. I'd be keeping it, I suppose, if the work were not in the public domain, but because I can pull it from the Internet, there seems little reason to keep a hard copy, especially when the version I have is pocket sized and not terribly condusve to easy functionality.

The book is interesting enough that I am tempted to try something else of Voltaire's, even if it's unlikely another work is as good as this one. The story is a satire, and the characters are drawn in large strokes. I don't suppose we are to take anything too serious or care too much about anything that's going on.

I long though my world lit professor, who liked to spend most class periods talking about contemporary California politics, didn't really have much to offer. He probably wasn't the greatest professor, but as I reread this, I was reminded that he actually did provide some philosophical context, context I would have loved to have had on this go around. I know that Voltaire was reacting to Leibniz and some other recent thinkers of his time in his account, but I don't remember much of what those folks said or who they were.

The gist of the story, however, involves the travels of Candide, who is greatly under the influence of his teacher Pangloss, who believes that everything always is for the best. Candide is in love with a gal from a rich family, and his impertinence one day in pursuing said gal gets him kicked out of the estate. It's for the best, however, because the land is soon invaded and the gal's family is most all killed off. Luckily, though raped, the gal survives, and Candide is not free to pursue her, as soon as he can get free from his army service.

Travels take them across the ocean, where an important man falls for the same gal and takes her, as poor and young Candide can do nothing to stop him.

Here, the story moves into the territory that I remember, a utopia called Eldorado. (I remembered this tale as similar to Samuel Johnson's Rabelais but now see that this portion of the story falls in its center and is really only a very small section.) Anyway, Candide still pines for his gal, so he leaves utopia--but he's given plenty of money for his journey. This now lets him do things he could not do before, but it also sets him up for constant con games.

In the end, he meets many of the characters from the early portions of the book and finds out all the bad things that have happened to them. Is it really the best of all possible worlds? When Candide finally gets his gal she is washed up. The focus switches then from seeking the best to simply working in one's garden. The ending seems rather stoic.