Status
Available
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Genres
Collection
Publication
[Rīga] : Zvaigzne ABC, [2005].
Description
Franois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), Voltaire, fue educado por jesuitas, pero a los pocos anos ya militaba en la libertina y elegante Sociedad del Templo. En lnglaterra conocio el espiritu cientifico y de tolerancia. Problemas politicos, huidas y enfrentamientos, cartas, satiras y publicaciones jalonaron toda su vida. Los cuentos de Voltaire (y este volumen reune tres de los mejores) son portadores de tesis filosoficas o politicas, pero el vehiculo literario resulta de una singular frescura y modernidad, muy en consonancia con los valores (tolerancia, pacifismo, antimilitarismo) que encarnan.
User reviews
LibraryThing member SkjaldOfBorea
(On Candide) Some independent minds might hope to skip this book - admittedly force-fed to generations of school children & students of French, insistently heralded as the centrepiece literary work around 18th Century Enlightenment. But open the volume & you will, from the first 2-3 pages, be held
Its hero - well-named Candide - is forced on a journey to establish whether this world is, as certain philosophers claim, an 'optimal' world. Or at least one in which humans may find tolerable happiness. He is gradually disillusioned. Voltaire, far the best informed man of his age, draws on his colossal current affairs knowledge to describe gruesome real-event wars, earthquakes, torture, slavery, rape & deception. Yet he also invents a glowing perfect society, the Eldorado, which in as little as 10 pages beats the combined utopias of Thomas More, Bacon & Condorcet. But agitated Candide finds only limited rest there. Will he & his companions at long last reach contentment in a different manner & place?
If so, he will have to learn a lesson Voltaire himself, after purchasing his estate of Ferney, had only recently digested: to 'work his garden'. Not a flowery pleasure park, but a 'real' plot of land, yielding goods of immediate necessity & tangible nourishment.
A book of truly universal interest. Brief, too.
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in an catching yet instructive story, written with spectacular simplicity. Its hero - well-named Candide - is forced on a journey to establish whether this world is, as certain philosophers claim, an 'optimal' world. Or at least one in which humans may find tolerable happiness. He is gradually disillusioned. Voltaire, far the best informed man of his age, draws on his colossal current affairs knowledge to describe gruesome real-event wars, earthquakes, torture, slavery, rape & deception. Yet he also invents a glowing perfect society, the Eldorado, which in as little as 10 pages beats the combined utopias of Thomas More, Bacon & Condorcet. But agitated Candide finds only limited rest there. Will he & his companions at long last reach contentment in a different manner & place?
If so, he will have to learn a lesson Voltaire himself, after purchasing his estate of Ferney, had only recently digested: to 'work his garden'. Not a flowery pleasure park, but a 'real' plot of land, yielding goods of immediate necessity & tangible nourishment.
A book of truly universal interest. Brief, too.
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Subjects
Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1759
Physical description
234 p.; 21 cm
Pages
234
ISBN
9984366723 / 9789984366722
Local notes
2., labotais izdevums.