Lunchtime read: Candide

This is the only reading I am going to be able to post about today as I have had a rare day off work and headed down to the West Country to spend some time with family. Having finished the Dreiser I picked this up because of its slimline nature plus having never read anything by Voltaire it was another goal to get this ticked off.

The first response to the story and the style is one of plesant surprise because you assume, completely wrongly in my case, that this is going to be a heavy intellectual tome. But is has humour, an incredibly brisk pace and a way of engaging you from the first couple of pages.

Highlights from chapters I - IV

* Candide is learning to be a tutor in the employ of a Baron but manages to lose his position after getting entangled with the Baron's daughter and then he leaves and ends up falling into an army that is about to go to war

* Candide seems to have no idea what is going on most of the time and during the battle manages to hide then walk off the battlefield in the direction of Holland where he believes he will find sanctuary

* He meets his old tutor who tells him that the Baron's daughter is dead and that the old world he knew has been destroyed forever and then sets off on a voyage with his old tutor and their kind hearted benefactor

Might be able to read some more tomorrow...