Product Overview
In this splendid new translation of Voltaires satiric masterpiece, all the celebrated wit, irony, and trenchant social commentary of one of the great works of the Enlightenment is restored and refreshed.
Voltaire may have cast a jaundiced eye on eighteenth-century Europea place that was definitely not the best of all possible worlds. But amid its decadent society, despotic rulers, civil and religious wars, and other ills, Voltaire found a mother lode of comic material. And this is why Peter Constantines thoughtful translation is such a pleasure, presenting all the books subtlety and ribald joys precisely as Voltaire had intended.
The globe-trotting misadventures of the youthful Candide; his tutor, Dr. Pangloss; Martin, and the exceptionally trouble-prone object of Candides affections, Cungonde, as they brave exile, destitution, cannibals, and numerous deprivation, provoke both belly laughs and deep contemplation about the roles of hope and suffering in human life.
The transformation of Candides outlook from panglossian optimism to realism neatly lays out Voltaires philosophythat even in Utopia, life is less about happiness than survivalbut not before providing us with one of literatures great and rare pleasures.
From the Hardcover edition.
