Hello everyone, so I have been thinking for some time about having a read-a-long event for a well-known French classic. I have decided on Candide by Voltaire. This classic is widely available in translation. Here is a Goodreads summary of the novel:
“Brought up in the household of a powerful Baron, Candide is an open-minded young man, whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief that ‘all is for the best’. But when his love for the Baron’s rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is cast out to make his own way in the world.
And so he and his various companions begin a breathless tour of Europe, South America and Asia, as an outrageous series of disasters befall them – earthquakes, syphilis, a brush with the Inquisition, murder – sorely testing the young hero’s optimism.”
The event will be from March 1-31.
I will be reading the work in the original language, but all posts will be in English. Here is the posting schedule:
Monday, March 10 : chapters 1-8
Monday, March 17: chapters 9-16
Monday, March 24: chapters 17-24
Monday, March 31: chapters 25-30 (last post)
After I post about a series of chapters, you have a whole week to comment on those chapters.
So who’s interested? It is fine if you do not comment every week of the event, but I’m hoping for a great discussion.
I’ll join 🙂 Fairly short classic to throw in the mix and it appears on “best of” list so I should take a look at it.
My short opening post just announcing the event is here.
Thank you for posting the event on your blog. I look forward to your contribution to the discussions.
Hi Fariba! I’m looking forward to participating too! I’m going to try to read at least some of it in French and we’ll see how it goes. If it slows me down too much (which I anticipate), it will be back to English, though! Thanks for hosting this read-along! 🙂
Here is my post: http://cleoclassical.blogspot.ca/2014/02/candide-read-along.html
No problem. I’m glad you can participate 🙂
I hope I’ll join you for this event if my schedule allows! I have a strange feeling that I’ve read it, but I don’t remember anything 🙂 So we’ll see 🙂
I hope you can join us Ekaterina 🙂
I’d like to do this, too.
http://ravenscroftcloud.wordpress.com/challenges-2014/
Great! I look forward to reading your reflections on Candide.
I’m going to try to fit this in. I’ve been meaning to read Candide for ages, and this will be excellent encouragement. Thanks for hosting!
Sweet! I look forward to reading your reflections on Candide. Thank you for joining my event.