To my understanding of this reading it was a wild and crazy tale of a very young man’s misadventures across half the world–adventures that retain their power to shock, horrify, and make you laugh. Sometimes all at the same time. Candide’s teacher, Pangloss, teaches that logic proves that this is the best of all possible worlds and that all things work out for the best. Starting with chapter one, things don’t seem to go that way for Candide though. He’s kicked out of the castle, drafted into the army, almost flogged to death for trying to desert, almost killed in a battle, almost drowned at sea, almost killed in an earthquake, almost burned by the inquisition.

To me the reading was very exciting. After each chapter I just want to keep on reading and reading just to see what candide was going to confront next . Just like him we all have a mentor we learn from and who always listens to for a piece of advice. After reading the 20 chapters I want to finish the rest of the reading. Hopefully all the readings this semester will be as interesting.