CANDIDE by Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
Translation by Burton Raffel, Yale University Press
One of the most distinctively unique pieces of literature I've ever read, this French satirical novella is a response out of the Enlightenment period to the indoctrination of the people by the church and state, and particularly to Leibnizian Optimism. The central character is continuously disillusioned by the hardships and obstacles he experiences, and sets out trying to prove the philosophy of the world being the "best of all possible things" by finding one person who's life story supports it. The style is partly picaresque, after the popular romance and adventure stories in European culture, which Voltaire's satire also addresses by reversing the normal archetypes and highlighting the unrealistic and superficial nature of the characters based on them.
A thought-provoking and memorable book, and quite short, though full of action. The narrative seems to consist almost purely of cause and consequence. At first, the reader may be taken aback by the swift changes in scene and circumstance, hardly allowing time for thought (which may have been the author's intention), but the prose soon transcends the details in a blur of half-remembered names. The ending feels like there's a morale in there somewhere, but is rather open-ended in what exactly the message of this morale could be.
