Candide

About the book

Book author: Voltaire

We follow Candide, the book’s namesake, and his chase for the love of his life, Cunégonde, through a dystopic world with Candide’s optimistic and naive lens that “we live in the best of worlds”.

Candide is a young man at the baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh estate. He is caught kissing Cunégonde, and consequently the baron threw Candide out. Candide got force-enlisted in the Bulgarian army. Later, the Bulgarian army decimates the estate, and we learn of this through Candide’s perspective. He meets his old magister, Pangloss, who taught him philosophy at the estate.

Candide travels to South America and finds Eldorado, where everyone is happy. He chooses to move on because Cunégonde is out there somewhere, and he cannot live without her.

Throughout Candide’s adventures, events and encounters we meet many characters who affect the journey in various ways. We see them as Candide sees them, but as a reader, you must apply the filter of the real world and not Candide’s optimism.

Candide is a satire book written by Voltaire in 1759. As such, it doesn’t read like a normal book and is sometimes rather tricky. The references are rather… outdated. I know this book was written to debate the fellow philosopher Leibniz. It is a story but it is also political satire, along with philosophy.

Reflection and takeaways

“You’re a bitter man”, said Candide.

“That’s because I’ve lived”, said Martin.

The entire book has to be read between the lines. Almost every character Candide meets is lying or cheating him, but Candide does not understand. The world is filled with suffering, injustice and cruelty. He sees war, disease, slavery and natural disasters. He sees the hypocrisy and corruption of those in power; religious leaders, politicians and aristocrats. But despite all this, he still belives in the goodness of the world, because there is no way magister Pangloss was wrong when he was blabbering about metaphysics and philosophy.

“Do you believe,’ said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?’”

“Do you believe,’ said Martin, ‘that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”

My foremost favourite takeaway is that reckless and blind optimism is a really bad idea in a world where there are malicious actors. I already knew that, because like Martin, I have lived – but I am spared from the bitterness.

The book ends with Candide saying the famous quote that appears in all kinds of places:

“Let us cultivate our garden.” - Candide

Scholars can’t agree on what it means. I am not a scholar, nor do I know, but I think it means that you should tend to your own business, and you eventually reap what you sow. If there are no marauders in your garden, excellent, don’t invite them. If you build your life and and sow your with mistrust and dishonesty, that is what you later reap. On the other hand, if you tend to your garden carefully, and build your metaphorical garden on happiness and true friends, that is what you will reap. It is also a call to action, no reaping without any sowing.

Why did I pick it

I have been very busy lately and have dropped my book reading tempo. I saw this book in a book store, and was inspired because it is a rather short book (129 pages).

Verdict

3.0 / 5. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone because it was tricky to read and there are much better books out there.