Guardian Newspaper 1000 Novels discussion

In October we will be reading Voltaire's Candide in our War & Travel category - who's in?

One of my favorite books. I've read it in French and English.

Just started. It's a re-read, but from a long time ago. My 1940s penguin copy has a brief and interesting introduction, saying that Voltaire wrote this in response to comments about the Lisbon earthquake, with philosophers contending that God had his plans and that it wasn't all for the best (in the best of all possible worlds). The editor agrees that Voltaire misrepresents the likes of Liebnitz, whose ideas were more nuanced and subtle than V suggests. But then Voltaire had spent two sessions as prisoner in the Bastille and at this point was still exiled from France, so wasn't averse to a little controversy.

"was" all for the best. Damned app won't let me edit after posting :)

(Note to self: must be more careful before hitting Comment)

Nearly finished my re-read of. the English translation

If anyone is interested in the real-life incident behind "Pour encourager les autres," I recommend the anonymous pamphlet on the last days of Admiral Byng:

A Letter to a Gentleman in the Country, from His Friend in London Giving an Authentick and Circumstantial Account of the Confinement, Behaviour, and Death ... Attested by the Gentlemen Who Were Present

I read this with another group not too long ago--that was my second read. I've got too many other things going at the moment for another re-read. I might check into the conversation once in a while though.

Just finished it and enjoyed it more than ever. From an age when writers often didn't know when to stop, this book is beautifully short, concise and sharp. I know no other writer who could write about an army butchering a family and find myself laughing like a drain. When Lady Cunégonde and the Old Woman compete with their horror stories about their abuse, I was reminded of the Monty Python sketch of Yorkshiremen (well, when I were a lad I were made to get up before I went to bed, lick the road clean, before being flogged for 8 hours ....).

So funny. Yet still so pertinent.

I had to remind myself of just how old this book is while reading it. To begin with I found myself thinking "well, obviously", and then realising what he was saying was not necessarily obvious at all at the time. I especially laughed at anything he said about Britain and the Brits. Candice didn't even get off the boat, but was so appalled by what he saw he high tailed off to Venice!

*Candide

So I live in England and use the “Wordsworth Classic” range (can’t speak highly enough of them and they look so pretty on my shelf).
My copy came in a book with other works and being a pedant I read the first one (Zadig) first (and enjoyed it). I’ve just started Candide (also enjoying it). So in my copy I have part one in the main body of the text and part two in an appendix as, according to the notes, part two probably wasn’t written by Voltaire but goes nicely with it. Did anyone else get a part one and two?

There wasn't anything like that in my Kindle copy.

I've never seen a part 2. Interested to hear what happens in it and what the quality's like.

Oh I shall let you know then! I’m happy to post it on when I’m down if anyone else wants to try it.

So I read part 2 the other day and it was funny but the quality was poor. You could tell it wasn’t written by Voltaire. There was also a LOT of sex in it. Nearly each little adventure included some kind of sexual exploit. At the very start Candide gets bored of tending his garden and sets off to Persia where he is taken in by a rich male Persian who forces him into a sexual relationship! It was shorter as well so if you get chance it’s a quick, fun, read.

Back then the lack of IP copyright protection led to folk stealing all sorts of popular characters.

If we ever get onto Don Quixote here, Part two opens with Cervantes' reaction to hearing about rumours about adventures attributed to him that were from unoffical plagiarisms of Quixote, by having his REAL Don meeting a fake Don and challenging him to a duel and roundly beating him up.

My copy also had a part II.
There was noting in my copy to suggest it was not by Voltaire, no obvious aspects made me think other wise. There was no shortage of rape and off stage sex in Part I so the notion that people continued to be subjected to violence and abuse did not trip my trigger.

So for the heck of it I wrote:
Who wrote Candide part II into my browser
Here is what I got:
Wiki:
Candide, or Optimism — Part II is an apocryphal picaresque novel, possibly written by Thorel de Campigneulles (1737–1809) or Henri Joseph Du Laurens (1719–1797), published in 1760.[1] Candide[2] was written by Voltaire and had been published a year earlier (1759). This work was banned and became popular enough that pirated versions started to appear.[3][clarify] The second part was attributed to both Campigneulles—"a now largely unknown writer of third-rate moralising novels;" and Laurens—who is suspected of having habitually plagiarised Voltaire. The story continued with Candide new adventures in the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Denmark.[4] A new scholarly edition with introduction and notes all in French was produced in 2003 by Edouard Langille (see References), and in 2007, Langille also edited Candide en Dannemarc (Candide in Denmark), which takes up the story following Candide, Part II.

Close quote.
Hope this helps