Guest Column: Candid about Candide |
A French fellow named Voltaire wrote a book called “Candide” that more or less answered the question, “Is this the best of all possible worlds?”
To which the answer is definitively, clearly, and absolutely: “Who cares?”
Actually, it’s more of a “no,” but Voltaire says it with a metaphor about rats on a ship.
We meet the book’s protagonist, a young man named Candide, in a castle. He has everything: good food, an education, and most importantly, a girl.
She’s named Cunégonde, which is a heck of a name to go through life with, but I suppose it’s no worse than Sean Bean.
He survives–Candide, not Sean Bean. Sean Bean never survives anything–a war, the Great Lisbon earthquake, and a trek across the globe.
His friends get disemboweled, drowned, or impaled. He raises a fortune and loses it.
He also kills a few people, but mostly by accident.
His........