Voltaire Books

This book is not good as a learning tool, it only gives 1 or 2 words of translation per page.

I liked this vocabulary builder idea more than the dual language books.

When reading the dual language books, i find myself reading every line translated, this one, even i if don't completely understand everything
it is much more fun to read. and you get to learn the important words that you don't know cause on other side there is like a small dicto for more difficult words.

also the book is very interesting.

I bought this book because it purported to define the "tough" words. I found that most of the defined words were ones I already knew, while a large number of the "tough" words went unnoticed. For instance: on the first page, "puissant" is defined, while "palefreniers" is not; page one of chapter 6 has 9 words defined (most were cognates) but no clue is given as to what the "auto-da-fe" mentioned on the same page might be. I could go on, but you get the picture. I would still read the book, but would recommend that one keep one's Larousse handy as the obscure vocabulary is hefty. I would not buy this edition for the vocab list as advertised; however, the unused space on the left side could be used by readers to add their own definitions.

The book itself is very interesting, but the characters are so small that I regreted that I ever bought this book.
Next time please warn customer about this serious defect.

Is there anything else to say? Karl the 12th of Sweden is a fascinating man with history to match. Voltaire's prose reads like a great fictional novel and provides philisophical insight into the times and life of Sweden's greatest king.

Selections are extremely short - like a collection of critical passages across Durkheim's works. Given the price can not recommend.

One of the current fads in fiction is to take a painting by some Dutch master of some nameless woman and write a book about that woman's relationship with the artist. For example, The Girl with the Pearl Earring. That was successful, so then you see dozens of the same ilk. In the late 18th century and early 19th centuries, with the publication of the Arabian Nights in translation, writers became involved in the new fad of setting their tales in the Arab world. Voltaire was not immune to it, as is evidenced with Zadig.

Much as science fiction writers sometimes mask the satire of our world in technological allegory, so Voltaire uses the setting of ancient Babylon to critique French society and beyond that, the customs of all of Europe. Zadig is young nobleman who falls into all kinds of troubles as he tries to make his way through life. He's a nice guy that doesn't deserve such troubles. For example, when his fiance is being kidnapped, he is struck by an arrow and the doctor says he won't live. When Zadig does survive, the doctor is angry at him because he survived! Then his fiance dumps him. Zadig will have to fight against treacherous kings, mages, women, thieves, actually just about everyone in the world turns against him.

The second work contained in this volume is L'Ingenu (The Child of Nature). In Volataire's time, and even in our time, Native Americans are romanticized as being closer to Nature. They didn't litter, they didnt destroy environments, etc. They were at one with the land. A lot of that is hokey. But in L'Ingenu we encounter this stereotype in the form of The Child of Nature, supposedly an Huron Indian visiting the high society of France. He ends up being the long lost nephew of the very French Abbe he is visiting. Of course, as soon as the Abbe learns this he tries to convert him to Christianity. What ensues is similar to Zadig. The Child of Nature most overcome all the lies and deceptions of the modern world in order to find his happiness.

I have to say that after reading 3 works by Voltaire, I'm not that impressed. To me, Candide was no big whoop. These two works bookend that famous work and inform it to some extent. Zadig seems to have been a warmup pitch for Candide and is equal in art to that work. In fact I would say they were interchangeable. If you've read one, you don't have to read the other. L'Ingenu on the other hand seems to go a little deeper. It criticizes the Church quite violently and actually dispenses with the comedy by its end. I've read many comedies funnier than this and tragedies more poignant. Don't come to this book expecting greatness.

Voltaire chooses an oriental tale as setting for an analysis of human traits and the influence of good and evil on human destiny. The essentialy good Zadig suffers setback after setback on his quest to reunite with his true love and after having almost lost all hope of finding happiness he suceeds in overcoming the evil and jealous medlings of the people around him and is able to lead a content and prosperous life. In essence the story shows how human destiny is undisputable and that the road to a fullfilled life is long and hard. "Zadig" is a nice example of 18th century French Enlightment, questioning old traditions and social structures in combination with showing new views on humanity and ideals.

When I started looking into the Deady Series it did at first seem not only interesting, but something different.

I don't want to say that this is the worst comic you can get your hands on. But it seriously depends if your into preverted and odd humor which can be seen in all of the Deady Books. The art style itself is very different from what you would normaly see in more traditional americanized comics.

This book had a very good theme to it, but it was very crazy and hard to follow. I would not recommened for young readers, but for older ones who have extra time on their hands. Overall it is an okay book.

This short book shows how easy it is to treat Voltaire as passe. While Voltaire was a visionary in the 18th century, Gray uses a contempory perspective to dwell on Voltaire's elitism and lack of political theory. Like the American founders Voltaire's idea of freedom was often limited to the aristocracy. Unlike the American founders Voltaire never saw a connection between civil liberty and democratic poltical theory. Voltaire's ideas about "enlightened despotism" now seem daftly quaint. Gray is correct in pointing out these limitations and his book counter balances the hagiography of previous Voltaire studies(like Will Durant) but it keeps him from appreciating Voltaire's positive contributions.

Having read several of the other reviews posted here on John Gray's book, "Voltaire", it is hard to find words that would enhance the chorus of denigration. This is quiet literally a "dumb" book, meaning any who read this will be struck dumb by it's intellectual vacuousness. My only additional comment would be that the editor(s) of this series failed miserably. By allowing this book to be published under the guise of representing a critical appraisal of a philospher, something the Great Philosophers series purports to be, ( I am referring, of course, to "critical" as in objective, not negative), they have called the whole series into question and cheapened the discussion of philosophy in general.

I read this book this morning and I found it very poor. He tells what Voltaire was thinking and ideas and concepts that he says Voltaire would not be able to understand or ever express, yet gives no clear examples to back up any of it. No one is expecting a chapter of examples, but at least give me ONE!

I hated this book. Gray lists all of Voltaire's faults and concentrates on the negative. His over-reliance on Nietzsche and his inclusion of de Sade(!) swayed me to the view that Gray does not understand the Enlightenment or the Philosophes in a thorough way. Potshots like "Nearly everything Voltaire wrote is unreadable today" made me angry. It's just nasty and not particularly valuable as a criticism since there are very few authors from that period that are still readable. Plus, someone once noted that Voltaire is not essential reading today because he WON. All the things he fought for are taken for granted today, essentially because he triumphed. Voltaire was the first soldier in the war for reason and he should be treated better than this. Gray just better be glad he's dead, because he would take him apart for this shabby piece of journalism.

Alas, there are not few enough stars to rate this book fairly. It is a vacuous, bad joke. Who picked this small-minded and petty professor to write about a 'great one' in the history of human world changers? Gray sounds like one of those 'shallow, artificial and superficial 'professors' of knowledge who, 'like the gnats who ride in the race, only barely hanging on to the neck of the thoroughbred - and then criticize the way the the race was won'. Everyone involved in this sham-of-a-book should be ashamed - the author is clue-less as to the greatness and genius of Voltaire, and takes cheap and uninformed pot-shots at Voltaire. He pecks away from his little, isolated Ivory Tower - at one of the great thinkers/liberators in Western Civilization, at Voltaire, no less, who writes from the Bastille, and uses his wits to enlighten Europe and escape the Inquisition and the corrupt aristocarcracies who hounded him throughout his 70+ years of heoric satire. As they say..."When a pickpocket sees a saint - all he sees are the pockets" Don't waste your time or money, and please, do not support this publication. It's a disgrace and a diservice to a great soul who made it possible for trash like this to be published.

I bought this slim 53 page volume hoping to get a little background on Voltaire's life, work, and philosophy. But for a book so obviously intended as an introduction to Voltaire, Gray's book instead is a scathing criticism, using basic introductory level information on Voltaire and the Enlightenment era as examples to make his argument. His conclusion- that "Voltaire's 'philosophy' has little to teach us," and that his work was heavily flawed and derivative in its time, and too "difficult" and "irrelevant for the modern reader." If this is true, then why was the book commisionned, and why am I reading it? The book is neither a suitable introduction to Voltaire, or a scholarly work of any noticeable merit, since the author never goes even remotely in depth enough to explain his positions. I can't believe this was written by a college professor. What was he on? For a better introduction to Voltaire, read his novella Candide, an excellent and hilarious little novel that raises questions that perhaps Gray would prefer to avoid.

I have seldom read two volumes appearing so promising on such a beautiful subject that would lead me to such disappointment. The second volume in particular is, to me, a step above a disaster. Some words do not even figure in the dictionary ("scientificite" "cryptoteleonomie"). If you do not know ancient Greek you are lost. So the book addresses only those who can understand this terminology, and even though, after a while, it becomes extremely cumbersome. Latin sentences are not translated, unless they are part of quotations from different authors than S. Murr,and those authors have been respectful enough to translate their Latin citations. The whole volume II could have been written in one or, at a maximum, two chapters linked into the first volume very easily. It is all what French people call "verbiage", and if you want to see samples of pedantism and "jactance", you really are in the ball with this volume II at each and every page. I was thinking that this poor Father Coeurdoux must have been tossing around in his grave, feeling so dissected by those endless and useless classifications and levels I and II and III for this and that ad nauseam, in a terminology sometimes close to absurdity like: "the absent presence of".... and "the being of the beings" (L'être des étants), and... let's mention "homogénéité linéaire isomorphe" or " axiomes théologico-rationnels" just to name a few and spare other readers from being victimized. A magnificent subject completely butchered by a lack of simplicity, and, yes, a lack of respect for the reader. And we will never know how the Père Dubois got the manuscript which he sold to the English, although it seemed from the beginning of the volume II that we were on an intelligent detective work. Terribly disappointing.

Dreadful translation; barely intelligible. Also carelessly printed. Like a high- school project from a C student.