>look at me im just a nice innocent protag
>bad stuff.......LE HAPPEND!!!
>this cant be bad because world is good
wow, a mindbreaking satire. only thing it does is attempt destruction ("look, a bad stuffTM happened!") but has not a speck of some personal philosophy or outlook on world. and no, dont throw "tend your garden!!!" meme at me.
its not even fun and its rarely funny.
this is peak despairshit - and i hate it.
was Sade influenced by it?
Yeah, you get nothing from Voltaire but a smug smile.
It's one of those books where you had to be living in the time and under oppressive rule to appreciate. I also despised it.
this was also my conclusion. I knew why it was written, so I "got" it, but it's literary value today is minimal. I read this when I was 12 or 13 and concluded at that time that it's only well known because it's a quick and easy read, but you can brag about reading it once you're done as though it was a classical tome
Eh, I think that's too young for this book. It's very dark and disgusting which isn't good for the mind if you don't already know what good morals are. I read it in college and the other students were laughing at how much rape was in it. I was repulsed by them.
Also, I think there's been a lot of work that's been inspired by it, so what was new and cutting edge then is meh and predictable now. I remember reading The Turn of the Screw and thinking how familiar everything is until I realized a lot of movies took core elements from it. It doesn't make the book bad, just doesn't have that "wow" factor anymore.
>I think that's too young for this book
agreed
>I read this when I was 12 or 13
If you read it at 12 or 13 the satire would not be funny. You'd lack the necessary experience. Of course you could understand in a detached way, but you wouldn't "feel ilt". It's nearly impossible to be weary of useless ivory tower philosophers before you've even started high school. It's like a story about a parent mourning the death of a child. You can understand what it means but since you've never had a child of your own it doesn't resonate.
>the style is too dry and matter-of-fact for me
That's where a lot of the humor comes from.
>There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had never heard. The cannons first of all laid flat about six thousand men on each side; the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.
you can't tell me voltaire should be censored for being amoral and also use IQfy LMAO
according to your jesus freak tier take on morality the entire internet should be shut down as well so kids can't go on it.
and why are you using this cesspit of a website?
saying people shouldn't be able to read voltaire because it will corrupt their "good morals" is a 250 year old excuse to ban the book and it was moronic then as well.
When did I say any of that you flaming homosexual? My point is that you should have a good foundation first before reading shit like that. Like, knowing that rape is wrong and needs to be taken seriously. A 12 year old would probably not even understand what any of that is, hence, why it's not good for young minds.
>Like, knowing that rape is wrong and needs to be taken seriously.
hahahahahahaha is this bait?
as if people don't already know this? you're telling me people who are going to read and understand the western canon don't already have the empathy necessary to understand sex is an act between two people and that the reciprocity of feelings and actions is part of the appeal of the act?
Also, Candide was literally just current events at the time. Scratch that, Black folk in Africa and Brazil are doing the same shit to each other now as we speak. Scratch that, somewhere in first world countries even, in the shadows, sketchy shit is occurring that will barely ever see the sheltered public eye. And how is Candide not also a condemnation of those same things? The entire point of the book is to ridicule the idea that everything in the world must be the most perfect outcome and is just since God would never ever do anything wrong. Even children are capable of asking why evil things happen (well, the children smart enough to warrant an actual education).
Who gives a frick about a stupid politically correct taboo that happened to emerge in the late 20th-early 21st century west which would be viewed as an anthropological curiosity if any other culture were dominant and looking at us? 10 year olds are watching bdsm on pornhub now on their parent's ipads LMAO you think a 250 year old book on the problem of evil in the world is going to make them read it and think rape is awesome because it's mentioned? This is some serious jesus freak tier shit, you should try getting judas priest and a clockwork orange banned to protect the chilluns too while you're at it
kys
I doubt they were laughing because it was genuinely entertaining or humourous to them, kids (and people in general) often laugh at horrific things in order to dissipate the tension, especially in public settings, it's why awkwardly chuckling is a thing.
>I also despised it.
Candide chasing dickywienered until she hits the wall and marrying her anyway hits a little too close to home, I gather.
Actually, when I read it I was still emotionally hurting from being assaulted so everyone laughing about the rapes and everything made me really uncomfortable.
sometimes i wonder why people like op even read books. then i remember i am on IQfy where most of you think the accomplishment of reading a book cover to cover gives you 20 iq points. or that most of you read books because you think it will somehow improve your life.
no, i was genuinely interested. i just found nothing of value in the book.
why do you like it? it would be nice if you were at least bit constructive
>it would be nice if you were at least bit constructive
And your criticism was? It's interesting that you think your criticism should be taken seriously.
i just find it deeply amoral. reading it felt akin to doomscrolling wikipedia violent incidents truecrime list or whatever, its very dry and never gets past laughing at stuff.
i liked this kind of style more when i was younger but i feel like i dont enjoy the works insisting on the absurd anymore. i prefer when writers argue for their vision of the world, not just saying "humans bad" over and over again.
im not saying it sucked for that time period or whatever, its just that it didnt do anything for me and that it feels obsolete by today' standard, in satire.
only good i found from it was an occasional chuckle.
>i prefer when writers argue for their vision of the world, not just saying "humans bad" over and over again
Then you completely misunderstood what "tend your to your garden" means if this is your takeaway. Candide satirizes a popular viewpoint that the world we live in is the best of all worlds and nothing about it could be any better. The phrase "tend to your garden" advocates that you do what is in your power to make the world a better place, rather than resigning yourself to believing nothing can be done.
i understood that intention. it was just that one sentence can't really hold balance to 25 chapters or so of rape and dismemberment.
at best i don't think it's good way to represent your personal philosophy in that manner. at worst i found it cynical and forced to just say that one sentence and wash hands of being called pessimistic or misanthrope.
You sound like a gay honestly.
>i just find it deeply amoral
Candide, deeply amoral? Did your mother drop you on your head as a baby? The entire novel is a moralistic satire and social criticism on contemporary Europe. Are you just triggered because Voltaire was a deist?
Zadig is better, and that only because it copy-pastes a bunch of stuff from Arabian Nights
its just well written and funny as shit, stop being so stuck up
i dont know, the style is too dry and matter-of-fact for me. i like more descriptive, slower and broader style of writing.
it was funny at times though
>filtered by Voltaire
ngmi
>Features interracial breeding
Are the French natural cucks?
no breeding just rape
This is exactly how I feel about The Stranger
>Yeah I just killed someone at random and admit it wasn't really self defense after helping escalate the situation
>what??! What do you mean I'm being held accountable for my actions that killed another human? Wow death penalty I'm going to die now?
>SEE!! ISNT LIFE ABSURD?!?!?!?!
Pretentious over-rated garbage
although i dislike the stranger, i think its at least somewhat interesting case study of an actual zombie. i dont really think Camus views the world from Mersault's lens, while i absolutely think Voltaire views the world from Candid lens (not the character, the book)
>>what??! What do you mean I'm being held accountable for my actions that killed another human? Wow death penalty I'm going to die now?
This was never a plot point of the book though. You're acting like Mersault was shocked or outraged that he was being put on trial. Did you perhaps skim a Wikipedia page or Sparknotes instead of reading the book? Because your moronation is really showing.
I really don’t think you’re remembering the book correctly. You did actually read it, right anon? You wouldn’t just talk out your ass after reading a bunch of IQfy mayamays, would you anon?
Did Leibniz read the book? Pangloss almost made me cry laughing at the wreck part
I read this novella to practice my French and it was honestly one of the worst books I've ever read from an intellectual and moral perspective, but I guess it was funny sometimes. Very juvenile, smug novella. Trashy.
Can you explain your critiques at all?
It comes across as a very smug attempt at writing an entire book based around a strawman. It feels extremely detached, as though written by someone with some erudition but little real emotional or interpersonal experience. I don't think there's any moral or intellectual value to be gained from the book at all and the work offers little aesthetic value. It's pure hollow arrogance moulded into the form of a novella.
>very smug
Are you sure your insecurity isn't perceiving more smugness than is actually there?
>strawman
It wasn't a straw man. It's Leibniz.
>It feels extremely detached
It's supposed to be. It's an enlightenment text, not a romantic one.
> as though written by someone with some erudition but little real emotional or interpersonal experience
Voltaire was 65 when it was published. It is likely he had a great deal more emotional and interpersonal experience than you have.
>I don't think there's any moral or intellectual value to be gained from the book at all
This is very easy to claim, but much harder to make a persuasive argument about it.
Insecurity stemming from what? I didn't like the book and I find the tone to be obnoxious, the moral to be limp and much of the thematic content to be absurd. That's all. If he's directly responding to Leibniz and isn't simply being obtuse and misunderstanding him then I can accept that it's at least a coherent book, but that doesn't make it good art, nor does it change the tone or shore up its weak moral.
>It's supposed to be. It's an enlightenment text, not a romantic one.
Then the enlightenment thinkers can keep their shallow non-art and I'll read something else.
>It wasn't a straw man. It's Leibniz.
Have you read Theodicee? You're just confirming the point of the other anon by uncritically accept the straw man.
>Then the enlightenment thinkers can keep their shallow non-art and I'll read something else.
That's fine but you ought to refrain from making bold accusations about intellectual value if you can't back it up with anything more than "meh I didn't like it"
It's dumb because it doesn't refute the central idea. The notion that this is "the best of all possible worlds" essentially can't be disproven because there is always the possibility for things to get worse no matter how bad they already are. Even if you can't think of a way, there is some unimaginable worse world. So just saying that bad things happen isn't an argument.
Yes, but you are forgetting that
. Considering the time, they literally had a king decapitated.
Voltaire is a good writer but I gather from his writings that he was a total butthole in life and we would not have liked each other. It in how he says things I think. You can sense the absolute condescension towards most other people in the man.
Candide is mentioned a lot in Uncle’s Dream where Dostoyevsky has more fun with its central concepts. The tend your garden stuff just leads to people using each other and constantly trying to get one over on different rivals based on old grudges, and Dostoyevsky just chooses his hero’s and villains along the way, the hero’s usually just being the strongest. It’s funny too because it’s all just clever old ladies trying to get one leg up in the world and only to really humiliate other old ladies based on decades old petty drama. He reveals Voltaire’s conclusion as overly optimistic in its own right
It's a book from 265 years ago that still manages to be accessibly funny. Sure, it's basically 18th century South Park but that doesn't mean you have to be a pseud about it and complain it doesn't have depth--in it's historical context it's a banger.
Candide is a fricking joy to read, you filtered moron.
>look at me im just a nice innocent protag
>bad stuff.......LE HAPPEND!!!
>this cant be bad because world is good
Filtered by a shitpost. He's making fun of how simplistic philosophical optimism pans out as a worldview, moron.
i found that shitpost boring and repugnant. that's all
its satire and criticism dont go farther than shitpost. so yeah, it definitely is amoral in sense that it never goes past shitposting and destruction.
i can understand how shocking it is (i generally don't have stomach for the stuff) - i just dont think shock factor should be the only thing pulling the weight of entire novella. if it were a little more funny maybe it would've been a more enjoyable read, but after initial shock i didn't find it funny out of its repetitiveness
>It is interesting that it predicted existentialism
i agree on this being proto-absurdism, but why existentalism?
well anon it can both be absurd, funny shitpost and despairshit, right? but i guess youre right, maybe i was expecting a more "serious" work
There’s nothing “optimistic” about Leibniz’s theodicy, and if that’s what you read into it, you didn’t understand it. Leibniz isn’t denying the evils we experience in this world. View it in the light of the ending of the Book of Job: “where were you when I created the world?”
>There’s nothing “optimistic” about Leibniz’s theodicy
That's the term for it, moron.
>Leibniz isn’t denying the evils we experience in this world
The entire line of reasoning is a tautological waste of time. If you start with the equation x=x you can expand it into arbitrarily complex-looking equations and waste a lot of time doing algebraic transformations that ultimately don't mean anything.
>That's the term for it, moron.
These are YOUR terms for it. Leibniz never called himself an optimist, and Leibniz isn’t an optimist in any real sense of the word. He isn’t going out and saying that the future is bright, only that things are as good or as bad as they have to be due to the logic of having an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. You could also easily call it the worst of all possible worlds except that there are worse worlds that God could have created except he didn’t because he wasn’t an butthole. Whether you feel like he did a good enough job is up to you and Job.
People are using the Term of Art in the customary way and you are arguing as if you were too stupid to understand anything but the common dictionary meaning.
>you are arguing as if you were too stupid to understand anything but the common dictionary meaning.
>as if
anon... I hate to break it to you but you're conversing with a genuine moron.
It's literally called "optimism," moron.
It is interesting that it predicted existentialism broadly and absurdism specifically, and it's got some genuinely funny moments, to boot. I think you've just been on IQfy too long and can't appreciate how shocking the novella was when it was published. Without that context much of the impact falls flat unless you're looking out for it.
>this is peak despairshit
I don't know what you're reading. The book is absurd. It's a funny shitpost to discredit someone he didn't read and certainly didn't understand. It is NOT a philosophical work, and is NOT to be treated as thoughtful or serious. It's astonishing you couldn't pick up on that, or if you did, astonishing that it didn't allow you to let go enough to avoid being this assblasted.
>didn't understand!
He cut through the bullshit. Sometimes philosophers spend inordinate amount of time and energy obfuscating stupid ideas with layers and layers of logic. Then they cry when you push their face into the dirt of reality instead of wading through your elaborately subtle constructs.
>pump out a shitpost to troll some philosophers in like a day or two
>hundreds of years later some randos are still seething you didn’t take your elaborate troll job seriously
Voltaire is just laughing in his grave at us right now.
What a really bad post, go back to whatever boards you came from.
Voltaire is a piece of shit bourgeois pushing for the british revolution to happen in France.
I've always found Voltaire to have some of the clearest easiest French for a learner.
I couldn't ever enjoy satire in general, even when I was agreeing with the author. It's the react youtube of the literary world, the absolute lowest effort shit you can think of as far as wit goes.
Fedora tier. Everyone who likes the book are adolescent edgelords with the typical strawmanned showcase of
>If God good why bad things happen??
>Candide frequently said to Cacambo:
>"I own, my friend, once more that the castle where I was born is nothing in comparison with this; but, after all, Miss Cunegonde is not here, and you have, without doubt, some mistress in Europe. If we abide here we shall only be upon a footing with the rest, whereas, if we return to our old world, only with twelve sheep laden with the pebbles of El Dorado, we shall be richer than all the kings in Europe. We shall have no more Inquisitors to fear, and we may easily recover Miss Cunegonde."
>This speech was agreeable to Cacambo; mankind are so fond of roving, of making a figure in their own country, and of boasting of what they have seen in their travels, that the two happy ones resolved to be no longer so, but to ask his Majesty's leave to quit the country.
It's just funny.
>The coast was lined with crowds of people, whose eyes were fixed on a fine man kneeling, with his eyes bandaged, on board one of the men of war in the harbour. Four soldiers stood opposite to this man; each of them fired three balls at his head, with all the calmness in the world; and the whole assembly went away very well satisfied.
>"What is all this?" said Candide; "and what demon is it that exercises his empire in this country?"
>He then asked who was that fine man who had been killed with so much ceremony. They answered, he was an Admiral.[32]
>"And why kill this Admiral?"
>"It is because he did not kill a sufficient number of men himself. He gave battle to a French Admiral; and it has been proved that he was not near enough to him."
>"But," replied Candide, "the French Admiral was as far from the English Admiral."
>"There is no doubt of it; but in this country it is found good, from time to time, to kill one Admiral to encourage the others."
> [32] Admiral Byng was shot on March 14, 1757.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng