9
" As I was doing this, I was also reading the book that Charlotte Clingstone had selected from Horace's library and left for me, Candide-- her cafe's namesake.
It was, unexpectedly, a screwball action comedy. The hapless main character, whose name was Candide, travelled with a band of companions from Europe to the New World and back. Along the way, characters were flogged, ship-wrecked, enslaved and nearly executed several times. There were earthquakes and tsunamis and missing body parts.
One of Candide's companions, Pangloss, whose name I recognized from the hundred-dollar adjective he inspired-- I'd never known the etymology-- insisted throughout that all their misfortunes were for the best, for they delivered the companions into situations that seemed, at first, pretty good. Until those situations, too, went to shit.
The story concluded on a small farm outside Istanbul, where Candide plunked a hoe into the dirt and declared his intention to retreat from adventure (and suffering) and simply tend his garden.
The way the author told it-- the book was written in 1959-- it was clear I was supposed to think Candide had finally discovered something important. "
― Robin Sloan , Sourdough
