Why read Candide, or Optimism?

Book cover of Candide, or Optimism

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'The prince of philosophical novels' John Updike

In Candide, Voltaire threw down an audacious challenge to the philosophical views of the Enlightenment to create one of the most glorious satires of the eighteenth century. His eponymous hero is an innocent young man whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Candide, or Optimism as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Gill Oliver

Author

This classic satire gripped me even though I only half-understood it. Whatever disaster befell my family, my mother used to assert it was surely for the best; so when, as an eye-rolling teenager, I found this on the reading list—Mum’s philosophy, tested in the real world—I was hooked.

Voltaire drags his dopey characters, led by the philosopher Pangloss, through every type of horror, war, famine, and earthquake. World events now keep driving me back to his conclusion: in an age of folly and random misfortune, the best you can do is to dig your garden. Tend…

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