Customer Reviews

Candy

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This sexually irreverent novel by Terry Southern wouldn't have spawned a 1968 cult movie with Ewa Aulin had it not been for the catalyst that sets things in motion. Candy Christian, a beautiful girl who just happened to be born on Valentine's Day, writes a paper on Contemporary Human Love for her instructor, Professor Mephesto, saying that "to give of oneself--fully--is not merely a duty prescribed by an outmoded superstition, it is a beautiful and thrilling privilege."

And things go really cockeyed from there. A tryst with Manuel, the Mexican gardener, in full application of her paper, leads to the hospitalization of her father, and her voyage into the wide, weird, world. It isn't that she's missing much. Her father's a stodgy conservative businessman, her aunt Livia is a vulgar hussy who uses sexual innuendos as regularly as one blinks. However, her adventures lead her into meeting people who want nothing more than to rip the wrapper off and have a bite of that... candy. Oops! Candy, I mean. Others downright hate her. The poor girl has the best of intentions and doesn't want to rock the boat for the sake of preserving her credo, and hence lets them take advantage of her without knowing that they are.

Written as it was in 1958, I can see how it shocked America and Europe. Dr. Krankeit's assertion that self-gratification is actually healthy is a message to the repressed people of the world: "This mechanism you've contrived to keep your sexual lust a secret from the world, and from you yourself, is causing you more trouble than you realize." It makes sense--keep something bottled or under pressure for too long and KA-BLAM!! Of course, involving another party complicates things, because consent is becomes issue. But is it healthy and okay to look at adult magazines, videos, or computer CD-ROMs? Heck yeah!

Southern's writing is brash, profanely funny, and will cause cause conservatives hairs to stand on end even today, but his choice of words, be they adjectives, nouns, and slang, in describing sexual things is creative to say the least. It's what keeps this book afloat. What also helps Candy is the hapless but lovable title character-face it, there's only one decent character in this book other than her--and I can't help but roll my eyes at her gullibility. But I also feel attached to my heroine too.

Southern's tour-de-force follows the innocent, beautiful Candy Christian as she runs sexually afoul of a whole bunch of scheming, horny men. Since she is pure and giving, she wants to please them, but gee whiz! Are they ever strange!

"Candy" was banned in the United States in the Fifties and received its first publication in Paris. Southern and Mason Hoffenburg, an American poet, admitted that they had written the book primarily to make money, since churn-'em-up pornography was what Olympia Press chef Maurice Girodias was paying for. Of course, the book became so much more than a cutesy best-seller: it was the satire of the century, throwing wide-eyed, white-skinned Miss America into a den of the great bugaboos of the time (including a Jewish doctor, a hunchback, and Daddy!). Read it till its thunderous and pulsating conclusion.

Having read Candide first, reading Candy was purely accidental, a fluke, or perhaps a dare, but part way into the book I recognized its inspiration, and enjoyed it immensely from then on. It is truly hysterical, as was the original Voltaire. Candy, however, includes snippets of ideas from other Classics: read it for yourself to see if you can guess each chapter's parent story. I have enrolled in a course that requires the reading of Candide - I am recommending Candy to the instructor who has never read it!

This is the best parody yet of a woman's ability to rationalize her own behavior - no matter how absurd the circumstances. I count at least 10 taboos broken in this book. The funny/sad thing is I've actually met girls like Candy. The scene with the Hunchback is a classic, as is the shocker ending! It also seemed to me that the authors started off trying to tell a good story and (somewhere in the middle) decided to hurry up and finish. As a result, in last quarter of the book the absurdity quotient starts to increase exponentially. It would have been better to stick with the original style.

This is one of the cleverest satires I have read in a long time. In this wickedly funny and provocative novel, Candy chronicles her pursuit of normalcy when she abandons her eccentric family. What follows is a hilarious twist after another as Candy encounters doctors, sexual analysts, yoga gurus and relatives. The sexual implications and content in this novel (too explicit to describe) are thought provoking, funny and disturbing at the same time. It is no surprise that Candy was banned from various countries. Terry Southern writes with irony and unsentimental prose -- a force to be reckoned with. Are you in the bargain for a satirical and dark read? Pick up Candy!

I read this extraordinary novel about 20 years ago and still thinking it is five stars. I've tried several times to get a copy of the movie that displays a very eclectic cast: Marlon Brando, Ringo Starr, Walther Matthau, John Astin and the unforgettable Ewa Aulin -beautiful- as Candy. I hope Amazon will soon make the effort and put this hilarious film for sale. I will be one of the first buyers, no matter the price.

It has been over 35 years since I read this, but I do recall that once started, I couldn't put it down and even cut classes that a.m. to finish it. I recall also that my eyes were popping as I read of the increasingly weird adventures of this girl who back then seemed utterly stupid and unbelievable. Today, I'm not so sure what message I would receive from Candy - - will have to try a re-read. I also remember feeling physically ill after finishing it and skipped lunch too that day.

I LOVED this book! I think the other reviewers may not have completely understood the jest of the book. Yes, it was definitely a shocker in it's day because of the sexual content, but I thought it was very humorous. These two writers definitely put a story together very wisely. Obviously, they were using tongue-in-cheek humor all through the book. Indeed, there were some dramatic points, but more than anything if one takes the view of the book in the context of, maybe, the style of Monty Python, one may look at it with a different perspective! Highly recommend!

This book is a masterpiece of contemporary society observation and criticism via a modern lovely and supersexy pin-up girl's adventures in starting to face the facts of life, specially the sexual ones. A jade jewel of a book.

Oh my gosh...never in my life have I read such a perversion of the English language. It made me sick to my stomach, and at the same time made me laugh aloud. Candy is a true gem of literature, I recomend it to anyone with a strong stomach!