Candy (Paperback)

by Terry Southern (Author), Mason Hoffenberg (Author), Maxwell Kenton (Author) "I've read many books," said Professor Mephesto, with an odd finality, wearily flattening his hands on the podium, addressing the seventy-six sophomores who sat in..." (more)
Key Phrases: Uncle Jack, Aunt Livia, Professor Mephesto (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Banned upon its initial publication, the now-classic Candy is a romp of a story about the impossibly sweet Candy Christian, a wide-eyed, luscious, all-American girl. Candy –– a satire of Voltaire’s Candide –– chronicles her adventures with mystics, sexual analysts, and everyone she meets when she sets out to experience the world.

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Product Details Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Grove Press Ed edition (February 9, 1996) Language: English ISBN-10: 0802134297 ISBN-13: 978-0802134295 Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,179 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
"I've read many books," said Professor Mephesto, with an odd finality, wearily flattening his hands on the podium, addressing the seventy-six sophomores who sat in easy reverence, immortalizing his every phrase with their pads and pens, and now, as always, giving him the confidence to slowly, artfully dramatize his words, to pause, shrug, frown, gaze abstractly at the ceiling, allow a wan wistful smile to play at his lips, and repeat quietly, "many books. . ." Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Uncle Jack, Aunt Livia, Professor Mephesto, Pete Uspy, Tom Smart, Jack Katt, Miss Christian, Aunt Ida, New York, Candy Christian, Exercise Number Four, Halfway House, American Express, American Revolution, Good Gosh, Great Godl, Irving Krankeit

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 5 books:

• Blue Movie (Terry Southern) by Terry Southern in Front Matter
• Sin for Breakfast by Mason Hoffenberg in Front Matter
• The Magic Christian (Terry Southern) by Terry Southern in Front Matter
• Texas Summer: A Novel by Terry Southern in Front Matter
• Easy Rider by Peter Fonda in Front Matter

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	79% buy the item featured on this page: Candy 4.0 out of 5 stars (21) $10.40
	7% buy Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction 4.7 out of 5 stars (84) $11.16
	4% buy Candy
	4% buy Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes 4.9 out of 5 stars (8) $17.95

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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews 5 star:  (11) 4 star:  (3) 3 star:  (5) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:  (1)           Average Customer Review 4.0 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 28 of 31 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Candy-a beautiful and thrilling privilege to read, July 29, 2002 By  Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    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. 14 of 15 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars "Give me your hump!", August 29, 1996 By A Customer 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. 17 of 20 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars A Close Encounter with "Candide", June 17, 1999 By  [e-mail] (Middle Ohio) - See all my reviews 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!		Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars CROSS BETWEEN LOLITA,3 STOOGES, AND HENRY MILLER! For some of the most outrageous writing and set pieces ever devised, look no further than this bizarre romp through the sexual deliriums of several characters, including the ripe... Read more Published on November 16, 2006 by S. Henkels 5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Tongue-in-Cheek Piece of Work! I LOVED this book! I think the other reviewers may not have completely understood the jest of the book. Read more Published on May 14, 2006 by JulieC40 3.0 out of 5 stars satire? what satire? I think the only real ironic thing about this famous Terry Southern book from the fifties is just how much time has changed. Read more Published on June 27, 2005 by landru141 1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your time. This is not a satire of Candide, it's not a slice of pop culture. It's a dirty old man's idea of what sex should be like. A dirty old virgin man. It's boring. Read more Published on April 22, 2005 by Alida 3.0 out of 5 stars Starts strong but falls apart It said that Southern brought on Hoffenberg because he couldn't figure out an ending and it really shows. It starts with classic Southern writing but falls off. Read more Published on February 21, 2005 by A. Farrell 5.0 out of 5 stars Clever and disarming satire! 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... Read more Published on March 5, 2003 by CoffeeGurl 2.0 out of 5 stars candy Perhaps it was because I have yet to read Voltaire's Candide, but Southern's Candy was completely lost on me. Read more Published on September 9, 2001 by Karlen 3.0 out of 5 stars Puerile and dated I'm sure this book was once considered shocking (shocking!), now it seems simply dated and puerile. Writen in see-the-cat English, you won't need a dictionary for this one. Read more Published on November 29, 2000 5.0 out of 5 stars Where's the movie I didn't read the book but I saw the movie and it's stayed with me all these years. I've been looking for a copy ever since. Read more Published on October 4, 2000 by Bruce DeBeck 5.0 out of 5 stars What about the movie? 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:... Read more Published on November 26, 1999 by Victor Sologaistoa Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Grove Press Ed edition (February 9, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802134297
• ISBN-13: 978-0802134295
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,179 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Candy-a beautiful and thrilling privilege to read, July 29, 2002

By	Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Give me your hump!", August 29, 1996

By A Customer

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.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Close Encounter with "Candide", June 17, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Middle Ohio) - See all my reviews

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!