Read The Classics: Candide May 16, 2009

The Multnomah County Library invites you to take part in a new book series, where you can read some of the best all-time classics and discuss them under the leadership of Dr. Katya Amato, professor of literature at PSU. Participation is free, but registration is required. You can register online at http://www.multcolib.org/events/classics/1600.html
A limited number of books will be available free of charge for those who pre-register.

Like Gulliver's Travels, Candide has been called a "philosophical romance." Do we live in the "best of all possible worlds" as Leibniz asserted? Voltaire pokes fun at Leibniz by personifying his philosophy of optimism in the character of Dr. Pangloss, Candide's philosophy tutor and sometime traveling companion. The Oxford English Dictionary confirms that Leibniz coined the word "l'Optimisme," and that the word optimism "owes its general diffusion to the satirical attack upon the doctrine by Voltaire in Candide ou l'Optimisme (1759)." Voltaire, who was considered the greatest intellectual of the Age of Enlightenment, treats us to the most witty excursion through the philosophical world as well as the loves, adventures and misadventures of Candide through Europe, South America and the Ottoman Empire. How many terrible things can happen with Candide still asking if this is the best of all possible worlds? Along the way Voltaire takes on governments, theologians, war and so many other aspects of his world that he had to publish Candide secretly in several countries simultaneously to avoid having it banned and having all the copies confiscated. This brief, delightful and highly influential book will make you laugh and think at the same time.

Official Website: http://www.multcolib.org/events/classics/1600.html