{"product_id":"2940012548986","title":"CANDIDE","description":"INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003eEver since 1759, when Voltaire wrote \"Candide\" in ridicule of the notion\u003cbr\u003ethat this is the best of all possible worlds, this world has been a\u003cbr\u003egayer place for readers. Voltaire wrote it in three days, and five or\u003cbr\u003esix generations have found that its laughter does not grow old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Candide\" has not aged. Yet how different the book would have looked if\u003cbr\u003eVoltaire had written it a hundred and fifty years later than 1759. It\u003cbr\u003ewould have been, among other things, a book of sights and sounds. A\u003cbr\u003emodern writer would have tried to catch and fix in words some of those\u003cbr\u003eAtlantic changes which broke the Atlantic monotony of that voyage from\u003cbr\u003eCadiz to Buenos Ayres. When Martin and Candide were sailing the length\u003cbr\u003eof the Mediterranean we should have had a contrast between naked scarped\u003cbr\u003eBalearic cliffs and headlands of Calabria in their mists. We should have\u003cbr\u003ehad quarter distances, far horizons, the altering silhouettes of an\u003cbr\u003eIonian island. Colored birds would have filled Paraguay with their\u003cbr\u003esilver or acid cries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDr. Pangloss, to prove the existence of design in the universe, says\u003cbr\u003ethat noses were made to carry spectacles, and so we have spectacles. A\u003cbr\u003emodern satirist would not try to paint with Voltaire's quick brush the\u003cbr\u003edoctrine that he wanted to expose. And he would choose a more\u003cbr\u003ecomplicated doctrine than Dr. Pangloss's optimism, would study it more\u003cbr\u003eclosely, feel his destructive way about it with a more learned and\u003cbr\u003ecaressing malice. His attack, stealthier, more flexible and more patient\u003cbr\u003ethan Voltaire's, would call upon us, especially when his learning got a\u003cbr\u003elittle out of control, to be more than patient. Now and then he would\u003cbr\u003ebore us. \"Candide\" never bored anybody except William Wordsworth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVoltaire's men and women point his case against optimism by starting\u003cbr\u003ehigh and falling low. A modern could not go about it after this fashion.\u003cbr\u003eHe would not plunge his people into an unfamiliar misery. He would just\u003cbr\u003ekeep them in the misery they were born to.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut such an account of Voltaire's procedure is as misleading as the\u003cbr\u003eplaster cast of a dance. Look at his procedure again. Mademoiselle\u003cbr\u003eCunégonde, the illustrious Westphalian, sprung from a family that could\u003cbr\u003eprove seventy-one quarterings, descends and descends until we find her\u003cbr\u003eearning her keep by washing dishes in the Propontis. The aged faithful\u003cbr\u003eattendant, victim of a hundred acts of rape by negro pirates, remembers\u003cbr\u003ethat she is the daughter of a pope, and that in honor of her\u003cbr\u003eapproaching marriage with a Prince of Massa-Carrara all Italy wrote\u003cbr\u003esonnets of which not one was passable. We do not need to know French\u003cbr\u003eliterature before Voltaire in order to feel, although the lurking parody\u003cbr\u003emay escape us, that he is poking fun at us and at himself. His laughter\u003cbr\u003eat his own methods grows more unmistakable at the last, when he\u003cbr\u003ecaricatures them by casually assembling six fallen monarchs in an inn at\u003cbr\u003eVenice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA modern assailant of optimism would arm himself with social pity. There\u003cbr\u003eis no social pity in \"Candide.\" Voltaire, whose light touch on familiar\u003cbr\u003einstitutions opens them and reveals their absurdity, likes to remind us\u003cbr\u003ethat the slaughter and pillage and murder which Candide witnessed among\u003cbr\u003ethe Bulgarians was perfectly regular, having been conducted according to\u003cbr\u003ethe laws and usages of war. Had Voltaire lived to-day he would have done\u003cbr\u003eto poverty what he did to war. Pitying the poor, he would have shown us\u003cbr\u003epoverty as a ridiculous anachronism, and both the ridicule and the pity\u003cbr\u003ewould have expressed his indignation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlmost any modern, essaying a philosophic tale, would make it long.\u003cbr\u003e\"Candide\" is only a \"Hamlet\" and a half long. It would hardly have been\u003cbr\u003eshorter if Voltaire had spent three months on it, instead of those three\u003cbr\u003edays. A conciseness to be matched in English by nobody except Pope, who\u003cbr\u003ecan say a plagiarizing enemy \"steals much, spends little, and has\u003cbr\u003enothing left,\" a conciseness which Pope toiled and sweated for, came as\u003cbr\u003eeasy as wit to Voltaire. He can afford to be witty, parenthetically, by\u003cbr\u003ethe way, prodigally, without saving, because he knows there is more wit\u003cbr\u003ewhere that came from.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of Max Beerbohm's cartoons shows us the young Twentieth Century\u003cbr\u003egoing at top speed, and watched by two of his predecessors. Underneath\u003cbr\u003eis this legend: \"The Grave Misgivings of the Nineteenth Century, and the\u003cbr\u003eWicked Amusement of the Eighteenth, in Watching the Progress (or\u003cbr\u003ewhatever it is) of the Twentieth.\" This Eighteenth Century snuff-taking\u003cbr\u003eand malicious, is like Voltaire, who nevertheless must know, if he\u003cbr\u003ehappens to think of it, that not yet in the Twentieth Century, not for\u003cbr\u003eall its speed mania, has any one come near to equalling the speed of a\u003cbr\u003eprose tale by Voltaire. \"Candide\" is a ful","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47181103956208,"sku":"2940012548986","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012548986_p0.jpg?v=1763570224","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012548986","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}