Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Silly, amusing story sprawled pretty around 250 pages of sex, 8 April 2002
I think Terry Southern must have sat down one day after having observed the exuberant financial success of some pointless artless meritless piece of gutter literature, realised it really is all about the sex and exploitation, and whipped this little sweaty gem up. And it is sex from cover to cover. You can open it randomly time and again, and be presented eternally with graphic (and usually, from someones point of view, horribly perverse) erotic discriptions spilling from one page to the next, occasionally suplimented by brief paragraphes dealing with characterisation or description of the enviornment which cannot be evoked in terms of gyrations, pantings, grunts, pantings, and so on. That's not to say this is a cheap book which only found an audience because some people who are afraid of heights pretend they are cultured enough to find porn between the covers of a hardback. It's funny, and outrageous, and clever, and interesting. It's just also very, very dirty.
The story follows the exploits of nubile heroine Candy Christian as she ambles through life convinced the plethora of lecherous conniving men (and women) trying to "get into her sweet little panties" are brilliant intellectuals, spiritual leaders, downtrodden innocents, and other people of worth and sincerity. Terry Southern can spin out some wonderfully silly (and sick) situations. In fact, after some carefull thought, I think the thing this reminds me most of are the fabulous furry freak brother comics - there's the same exagerated intelligent madness going on, and everything is caricatured and larger-than-life. Just think sex instead of dope, and you'll have a pretty good idea.
So, yeah, check it out... five minutes to read, and five stars if only it wasn't so repetitive. As one last pointer: if the only Terry Southern stuff you've read previously are some of his short stories, don't expect Candy to be an extended version. "Red Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes" (short stories) is superior in terms of quality of writing and bredth of ideas - but Candy is interesting, and very, very funny. And it's apparently Terry Southern's best known work, so evidently he was right when he seemed to have a moment of clarity and realise: sex sells, and absolute sex sells absolutely.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Candide revisited, 13 Jul 2004
In 1759 the French author and philosopher Voltaire wrote the short story "Candide", the tale of an innocent abroad. It was actually a satire on the philiosophy of Leibniz, who claimed that since God was omniscient, omnipotent and loving, he would never make a less than perfect world; hence this world is the best of all possible worlds. The story follows the hero, Candide, as he naively holds on to this view despite all the misfortunes and abuse he suffers. Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg changed male Candide to female Candy and set it the peace-and-love "everything's cool, man" world of the Hippies. Oh, and added more sex and dumbed down a bit. So, it's a more accessible read for most than Voltaire's original. Worth reading - and thinking about. If you know anyone who's at risk of being drawn into a cult, get them to read the espisode about Great Grindle - it might just open their eyes!
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![Candy [DVD] [1968]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TK47ESZCL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Ewa Aulin
by Terry Southern
by Terry Southern
by Luke Rhinehart
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
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