Length4h 25m
About this audiobook
Candide is characterised by its sarcastic tone, as well as by its erratic, fantastical and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious bildungsroman, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers through allegory; most conspicuously, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism. Voltaire's men and women point his case against optimism by starting high and falling low. A modern could not go about it after this fashion. He would not plunge his people into an unfamiliar misery. He would just keep them in the misery they were born to. But such an account of Voltaire's procedure is as misleading as the plaster cast of a dance. Look at his procedure again. Mademoiselle Cunégonde, the illustrious Westphalian, sprung from a family that could prove seventy-one quarterings, descends and descends until we find her earning her keep by washing dishes in the Propontis. The aged faithful attendant, victim of a hundred acts of rape by negro pirates, remembers that she is the daughter of a pope, and that in honor of her approaching marriage with a Prince of Massa-Carrara all Italy wrote sonnets of which not one was passable. We do not need to know French literature before Voltaire in order to feel, although the lurking parody may escape us, that he is poking fun at us and at himself. His laughter at his own methods grows more unmistakable at the last, when he caricatures them by casually assembling six fallen monarchs in an inn at Venice. A modern assailant of optimism would arm himself with social pity. There is no social pity in "Candide." Voltaire, whose light touch on familiar institutions opens them and reveals their absurdity, likes to remind us that the slaughter and pillage and murder which Candide witnessed among the Bulgarians was perfectly regular, having been conducted according to the laws and usages of war. Had Voltaire lived today he would have done to poverty what he did to war. Pitying the poor, he would have shown us poverty as a ridiculous anachronism, and both the ridicule and the pity would have expressed his indignation.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.0 (355K)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, StoryGraph, Amazon
GenreGeneral Fiction
Length4 hrs 25 mins
Narrated byXYZ Voices
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateAug 5, 2025
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2How Candide Was Brought up in a Magnificent Castle and How He Was Expelled Thence
3What Became of Candide Among the Bulgarians
4How Candide Made His Escape from the Bulgarians, and What Afterwards Became of Him
5How Candide Found His Old Master Pangloss, and What Happened to Them
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6Tempest, Shipwreck, Earthquake, and What Became of Doctor Pangloss, Candide, and James the Anabaptist
7How the Portuguese Made a Beautiful Auto-Da-Fé, to Prevent Any Further Earthquakes and How Candide Was Publicly Whipped
8How the Old Woman Took Care of Candide, and How He Found the Object He Loved
9The History of Cunegonde
10What Became of Cunegonde, Candide, the Grand Inquisitor, and the Jew
11In What Distress Candide, Cunegonde, and the Old Woman Arrived at Cadiz; and of Their Embarkation
12History of the Old Woman
13The Adventures of the Old Woman Continued
14How Candide Was Forced Away from His Fair Cunegonde and the Old Woman
15How Candide and Cacambo Were Received by the Jesuits of Paraguay
16How Candide Killed the Brother of His Dear Cunegonde
17Adventures of the Two Travellers, with Two Girls, Two Monkeys, and the Savages Called Oreillons
18Arrival of Candide and His Valet at El Dorado, and What They Saw There
19What They Saw in the Country of El Dorado
20What Happened to Them at Surinam and How Candide Got Acquainted with Martin
21What Happened at Sea to Candide and Martin
22Candide and Martin Touched Upon the Coast of England, and What They Saw There
23What Happened in France to Candide and Martin
24Candide and Martin, Reasoning, Draw Near the Coast of France
25Of Paquette and Friar Giroflée
26The Visit to Lord Pococurante, a Noble Venetian
27Of a Supper Which Candide and Martin Took with Six Strangers, and Who They Were
28Candide's Voyage to Constantinople
29What Happened to Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss, Martin, Etc.
30How Candide Found Cunegonde and the Old Woman Again
31The Conclusion
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