While I was reading Candide, the controversial 18th century fable by master satirist and troublemaker Voltaire, I mentioned to some fellow readers that I thought it was very funny.  I was met with a chorus of boos and hisses:  “Awful book.  Miserable book.  Thoroughly depressing.”  This made me wonder if we were talking about the same book, until I realized that they had both read it while still in their teens, when the bitterness of Voltaire’s satire must have proved overwhelming to their youthful optimism.  

It should be noted that the full title of the book is Candide, or Optimism, although admittedly there is very little in the story of our hero Candide and his teacher Dr. Pangloss to inspire one to an optimistic view of the human race.  Technically, it’s a satire on the views of the German thinker Liebniz, whose philosophy on the existence of evil is summed up in the famous saying that we live in “the best of all possible worlds.”  Voltaire disagrees.  But you don’t need to know the works of Liebniz to get Voltaire’s indictment of society which in Candide is corrupt from top to bottom.