Candide: Zadig and Selected Stories
France’s most distinguished man of letters
This essential collection from the genius Voltaire includes his masterpiece and best-known work Candide, as well as his novel Zadig and fourteen short stories: “Micromegas,” “The World as It Is,” “Memnon,” “Bababec and the Fakirs,” “History of Scarmentado’s Travels,” “Plato’s Dream,” “Account of the Sickness, Confession, Death, and Apparition of the Jesuit Berthier,” “Story of a Good Brahman,” “Jeannot and Colin,” “An Indian Adventure,” “Ingenuous,” “The One-Eyed Porter,” “Memory’s Adventure,” “Count Chesterfield’s Ears,” and “Chaplain Goudman.”
This essential collection from the genius Voltaire includes his masterpiece and best-known work Candide, as well as his novel Zadig and fourteen short stories: “Micromegas,” “The World as It Is,” “Memnon,” “Bababec and the Fakirs,” “History of Scarmentado’s Travels,” “Plato’s Dream,” “Account of the Sickness, Confession, Death, and Apparition of the Jesuit Berthier,” “Story of a Good Brahman,” “Jeannot and Colin,” “An Indian Adventure,” “Ingenuous,” “The One-Eyed Porter,” “Memory’s Adventure,” “Count Chesterfield’s Ears,” and “Chaplain Goudman.”
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Community Reviews
There's a reason why "Candide" is the most well-known: it's the best written. (However, "Micromegas", which Borges loved, is also great too.) The other stories are of a mixed quality, with "Zadig" most prominently showing the divisiveness: fantastical but not fantastical enough, intellectual but not intellectual, and emotional but not emotional enough. It pans out to be a fairly middling morality tale with Voltaire not committing enough to the dramatic / philosophical / fantastical aspects of it.
But, Voltaire, to me, isn't a fantastic read necessarily for his writing ability, in the way one would love Stendhal or Flaubert; one loves Voltaire for his moral indignation and his embrace of the world and humanity's flaws. It is no wonder, of the writers to emerge unscathed from Flaubert's "Bouvard and Pecuchet", Voltaire is among them, and indeed may be the most exalted: Voltaire felt passionately and angrily for human liberty.
And so Voltaire to me is a "comfy" read. Yes, horrible, really horrible things happen in his stories, but Voltaire doesn't show them to you to be cruel, he shows them to you to be sincere about your humanity. No wonder the French love him so well; and they should continue to do so (plus or minus some of his troll-worthy remarks).
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