A classic to appreciate in hindsight.

Poor Candide! Expelled from the castle in which he led a quiet life, free from all external evils, he did not know well, that one could not blame him, he will be immediately immersed in a veritable abyss of violence and cruelty .
In a succession of improbable circumstances, alternating luck and bad luck, he'll let carry and shake by the events of life. During his journey through the world, he will not discover that fields of ruins, absurd wars, disease and natural disasters. Little rest for him, as for the reader, in a fable removed and the hectic pace, where we enjoy multiple metaphors antiphrases and other figures of speech that the author mania to perfection.
Behind the story, a true pamphlet in favor of freedom, the condemnation of slavery and how the most basic rights of human beings in general are too often flouted; a profound satire of society, his authoritarian tendencies even totalitarian, unfounded the pregnancy of some other contempt orders who are dedicated to them and the terrifying human cruelty.
Voltaire wears wonderfully irony to denounce the many tragedies that lie behind the intolerance and fanaticism or more simply the reign of superficiality and appearances (see, by the way, an interesting picture of some good French mentalities, that portrays the author with some accuracy footprint sense of parody), which leads to a design too materialistic society where greed too often leads corruption, underscored with a real questioning of happiness.
A satire of the time, where the search for Eldorado mingles with the irrational and illusions on the promises of the New World. With background, beautiful attack against the excessive optimism of some philosophers of the time and utopian excesses to which they may lead.
A book often recommended for high school students, but I do not regret having read later on (so to say ...), as the decline of which can be arranged in relation to a certain knowledge of the world can s' especially useful for better assess the extent of the work. It is not too late, if you have passed the studies, to discover this interesting work full of revolt and criticism.