From Westphalia to El Dorado, Candide just never stops moving, usually because he’s on the run from someone or something. The sheer number of locations that Candide travels to is perhaps my favourite aspect of the story. There’s a lot going on in this story and it’s fantastic. Voltaire also specifically mocks Leibniz and his ideas of optimism throughout the entire novella. Voltaire packs so much into this short novella, ridiculing all organised religion, theologians, governments, war, armies, and philosophers. Thanks to Project Gutenberg, you can read an English translation of Candide for free. I’m not sure how different it is to the Penguin edition but, hey, it’s free! As he and his various companions roam over the world, an outrageous series of disasters befall them – earthquakes, syphilis, a brush with the Inquisition, murder – sorely testing the young hero’s optimism. But when his love for the Baron’s rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is cast out to make his own fortune. Summary: Brought up in the household of a German Baron, Candide is an open-minded young man whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief, inspired by Leibniz, that ‘all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds’.
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