Recent Reading

Wednesday, 5 February 2003

Candide by Voltaire and Rasselas by Doc Johnson. The latter is in a second-hand "Everyman's Library" edition with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and William Beckford's (who?) Vathek (what?) Candide's main virtue is that (on a first reading at least) it's very funny. Rasselas' major virtue is that (on any reading) it's short. On the principle that a good book will be as much a pleasure to read on the second and subsequent readings as the first, I suppose that makes Rasselas the better work.