Candide ou l'Optimisme

Par Francois Voltaire

Une édition de référence due Candide ou l’Optimisme de Voltaire, spécialement conçue pour la lecture sur les supports numériques.
« On aperçut enfin les côtes de France. « Avez-vous jamais été en France, monsieur Martin ? dit Candide. — Oui, dit Martin, j'ai parcouru plusieurs provinces. Il y en a où la moitié des habitants est folle, quelques-unes où l'on est trop rusé, d'autres où l'on est communément assez doux et assez bête, d'autres où l'on fait le bel esprit ; et, dans toutes, la principale occupation est l'amour ; la seconde, de médire ; et la troisième, de dire des sottises. — Mais, monsieur Martin, avez-vous vu Paris ? » (Extrait du chapitre vingt-unième.)

• Langue: Français
• Éditeur: Primento Digital
• Date de sortie: 1 janv. 2012
• ISBN: 9782806232557

Avis sur Candide ou l'Optimisme

[xiaomarlo · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Hilarious! Ever since reading The Baroque Cycle (or at least the first two books and the first half of the third one) I've loved this historical period, and it's clear Stephenson wrote it with Candide in mind. It's silly, clever, and risqué, and you can read it in an afternoon.

[gazzy_1 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Classic modern fable exploring the once popular philosophy of 'everything now is exactly as it should be and for the best' with comedic results.

[terrapinjetta_1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Absolutely hilarious, and extremely easy to read as well.

[wenestvedt_1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

I saw this at the Guthrie Theater in the late 80s and it was great; the story still holds up.

[schufman · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Very enjoyable, especially for a philosophical stint. Definitely a book I will want to read several times over to digest, but for an initial reading it was fairly light.

[therebelprince · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

Juvenal once said, "It is difficult not to write satire", meaning that even if he put ink to paper with different intentions, his worldview would press him on in one direction. He and Voltaire would have got along famously, I suspect.

[bookomaniac-1 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Zeker mooiste verhaal van Voltaire. Episodisch opgebouwd, maar met duidelijke lijn: de Bildung van Candide; ontluistering van het verhaal van Pangloss en tussendoor de traditionele stokpaardjes van Voltaire.

[lynnb_64 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

This is my second read of Candide. I was inspired to do so after reading a biography of Voltaire. I enjoyed the book more, I think, with more of the context of Voltaire's life...or maybe I'm just older and wiser!This isn't my kind of book....too much plot, not enough character development. But, like many reviewers, I think the book raises issues that remain relevant today, and that made it thought-provoking. A true classic.

[aj_ferguson-1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

A dark, comic, and biting satire. Whenever I revisit Candide, I always find Voltaire is making points which are relevant to contemporary events,

[maxernst11 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Zeker mooiste verhaal van Voltaire. Episodisch opgebouwd, maar met duidelijke lijn: de Bildung van Candide; ontluistering van het verhaal van Pangloss en tussendoor de traditionele stokpaardjes van Voltaire.

[jmoncton_1 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Interesting satire - wonderful narration.

[robert.zimmermann · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

This book was pretty funny. I didn't understand most of the satire being that it was written well before my time, but I got the overall sense that it was humorous and quite enjoyable.

[madepercy-1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Frank McLynn's work 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World mentioned a good deal about Voltaire, as did Leo Dramrosch's Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius. This is my first Voltaire and I was surprised by how small the novella is relative to its historical impact. This has led me to purchase Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful and to take up Tristram Shandy again. Candide and Tristram Shandy were, of course, both published in 1759 so the linkages with my earlier reading are apparent, if unintended. If anything I have gained from Candide confirmation of the idea of tending one's own garden, not to mention a burning desire to remove all further naivety from my very being.

[jillkenna · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

This tiny little book took me 8 days to read. Not because it was boring, the writing is just harder to read in this day and age (to me anyway).

[brakketh-1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Tragedy and comedy presented in sharp contrast satirising the optimism of certain philosophies.

[cecrow · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

A complete and utter failure! Voltaire presents us with the premise that this is the best of all possible worlds, but only evil befalls his poor characters: scandal, conscription, rape, murder, pillage, mutilation, disease, disaster, inquisition, genocide, adultery, slavery, shipwreck, kicks in the backside, you name it. What the author was thinking of, I can scarcely imagine. I'm going back to my garden now.

[stef7sa-1 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Still funny, this sarcastic, cynical tale about the innocent young man learning about the ways of the world the hard way. "Why then was the world created?" " To drive us mad!"

[dandelionroots · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

In a constant barrage of hilarious, yet fairly accurate to history horror show: another war between the french and the english, the Lisbon earthquake and the inquisition's response to it, colonialism; Candide barely survives "this best of all possible worlds" according to his philosophy professor and a popular doctrine of the time period proposed by Leibniz (the argument not being that this world is free of evil, but given our species, it's the best we can achieve - for if we were capable of optimizing our world in any facet, God would have created that one instead). His experiences teach him that humanity is shit overall:"Do you believe that men have always slaughtered each other as they do today, that they've always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates and thieves, weak, fickle, cowardly, envious, greedy, drunken, miserly, ambitious, bloodthirsty, slanderous, lecherous, fanatical, hypocritical and foolish?Do you believe that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they find them?"But in too small doses it does redeem itself individually. He ends with hope."Man cannot obliterate the cruelty of the universe, but by prudence he can shield certain small confines from that cruelty." Cultivate your garden!Pretty keen on Voltaire now.

[omgully · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

Great book. However, the Bantam Classic edition is only an ok translation. I got my copy for cheap. It tells the story but I'm sure there are other more scholarly translations I would choose if I were to read it again.

[dele2451 · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

How droll.

[lydia1879 · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

I read this in university and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, which I think happens to a lot of people when they read it.

It's a crazy adventure story, with twists, and turns and even stranger characters. It revolves around Candide, a young man so named because he resembles a blank slate, for all the word and society to write on.

There's so much to talk about within this book, even though it's so short I feel like Voltaire really crammed in some serious issues in the sparse number of pages he allocated himself. Some of the book has still stayed with me, and every once and a while I'll find myself quoting a line or two, or seeing Candide referred to in popular culture somewhere.

His witty critiques and snarky comments helped to empower a population of people who needed a revolution.

It looks intimidating, but I promise it's not as bad as it seems. In my opinion, it's worth it.

[comfypants · Évaluation : 1 sur 5 étoiles]

A man with a naive philosophy faces a series of tragedies around the world.1/4 (Bad).It's all bitter, derisive "wit" that reads like a summary of a novel. I don't understand what any modern reader would get out of this.

[dinadansfriend · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

A very famous novel, it is, first published in 1759. I remember only a small number of incidents but they have stuck after a half century, so...I'll call it a good book about human behaviour. I believe I read this in French...but I could have been doing a reread after doing it in English translation first.

[anniehidalgo · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Wish I knew what everyone sees in this one. I've known a few people who have claimed this as one of their favorite works, and to me, anyway, this book appears so slight when compared with other classical works. But then, allegory was never my favorite form of literature. I can completely understand Balzac, or Zola, or Flaubert. They were amazing writers, and you can get something new out of them with each reading, I think, depending upon what stage you are at in your own life. But it seems like there is a trend in French literature - the spare and esoteric work, the one that says, "this may not look like much, but it has Layers." I'm thinking especially of The Little Prince, this work, and possibly all of Camus. It may be very worthy. I'm sure the fault is mine here. But I just don't get it.

[elosoblanco · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

This was not at all what I thought it would be. The read was interesting, and heavy on the satire. The theme is easily understood and carried throughout the work, and it's a relatively quick read. Read this if you have a couple of hours to spare.

[duffdaddy-1 · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

The Baron's lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration.One day when Cunegonde was walking near the castle, in a little wood which was called the Park, she observed Doctor Pangloss in the bushes, giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother's waiting-maid, a very pretty and docile brunette. Mademoiselle Cunegonde had a great inclination for science and watched breathlessly the reiterated experiments she witnessed; she observed clearly the Doctor's sufficient reason, the effects and the causes, and returned home very much excited, pensive, filled with the desire of learning, reflecting that she might be the sufficient reason of young Candide and he might be hers.Candide that he was a young metaphysician, extremely ignorant of the things of this world...Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.Pangloss made answer in these terms: "Oh, my dear Candide, you remember Paquette, that pretty wench who waited on our noble Baroness; in her arms I tasted the delights of paradise, which produced in me those hell torments with which you see me devoured; she was infected with them, she is perhaps dead of them. This present Paquette received of a learned Grey Friar, who had traced it to its source; he had had it of an old countess, who had received it from a cavalry captain, who owed it to a marchioness, who took it from a page, who had received it from a Jesuit, who when a novice had it in a direct line from one of the companions of Christopher Columbus. For my part I shall give it to nobody, I am dying."Our men defended themselves like the Pope's soldiers; they flung themselves upon their knees, and threw down their arms,"Oh! what a superior man," said Candide below his breath. "What a great genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him." "But is there not a pleasure," said Candide,[Pg 141] "in criticising everything, in pointing out faults where others see nothing but beauties?" "That is to say," replied Martin, "that there is some pleasure in having no pleasure."Instantly Candide sent for a Jew, to whom he sold for fifty thousand sequins a diamond worth a hundred thousand, though the fellow swore to him by Abraham that he could give him no more."I know also," said Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden." "You are right," said Pangloss, "for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle." "Let us work," said Martin, "without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable."

[la2bkk · Évaluation : 5 sur 5 étoiles]

For good reason, Candide is considered one of the true "must reads." Centuries after its writing, the book remains current not only in its concise, easy reading style, but also in its message about human nature. An all time favorite.

[benjamin.duffy · Évaluation : 4 sur 5 étoiles]

I think that Candide is probably the type of book that enriches the reader the deeper he or she delves into it. It would probably reward repeated readings. It would probably reveal deeper layers of satire and absurdity if it were read in the original French. It would probably take on deeper shades of meaning if it were read in conjunction with any of the commentaries that have been written about it over the past 250-odd years.

Having said that, I'm not going to do any of those things. I have way too many books on my plate to reread this book any time in the next year; the limits of my French (one year of college French, an ex-wife who was fluent) would make reading it in that language a brutal, dictionary-in-hand chore; and I generally dislike reading books about books, so commentaries are right out.

So, I didn't dig too deeply into Candide, instead just reading it as the absurd tale it was, not looking for too much meaning beyond the surface. And you know what? I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was like Forrest Gump, only with a little less faith in humanity and a lot more murder, rape, cannibalism, zoophilia, and child prostitution. It was full of pitch-black humor, and the breezy, matter-of-fact way in which some of the horrific situations were described only served to make it funnier.

Unsurprisingly, this was a super dark book, and an angry one, full of scathing satire. It served up a double middle finger salute to pretty much everyone: nobility, clergy, self-styled intellectuals, real intellectuals, commoners, the French, the Germans, the English - nobody escapes Voltaire's poison pen. Virtually everyone is portrayed as stupid, dishonest, self-serving, small-minded, and hypocritical. Religion and government receive the brunt of Voltaire's onslaught; it isn't hard to see why this book was banned in so many places for so many years - even well into the 20th century in parts of the United States.

This was a fast, hilarious, exhilaratingly bitter read, and just the thing to top off your misanthropy tank if it's ever running low. Fine family fun!

[aliceanna-1 · Évaluation : 2 sur 5 étoiles]

Should be renamed Job. Geez, what else was supposed to happen to this guy? And everyone in his life kept getting killed and then turning up again. Not my cup of tea even as a satire.

[miguelnunonave · Évaluation : 3 sur 5 étoiles]

Historically interesting satire against the set of France's enlightenment period. Main character is just what it says - candid. Great if you love philosophy.