Candide | Paperback

Candide by Voltaire confirms a lot of suspicions for everyone I think. Them French and Belgian arty-types sure are crazy.

Candide plays out as a sort of fairy tale once-upon-a-time type affair, fairly innocently and poetically until war breaks out and people are disemboweled, raped, (in one case, in that order), and the hopelessly optimistic orphan Candide sets out across the world finding riches, and losing them, seeking love, finding disappointment, seeking friendship, finding betrayals, and being generally wronged by everyone, purely because of his honest and kind ways.

It's heavily pessimistic, with a moral to the tale that will probably completely ruin your day, but overall worth a look, it's only short, there's a wonderfully sceptical sense of humour throughout the piece, and all things aside, it's a great story of love, adventure and the nature of humankind.