PHILADELPHIA -- It's easy to see the final line in Voltaire's "Candide" hanging on the wall above an executive's head in a neatly matted frame: "e must cultivate our garden." Or perhaps on an inspiring desk calendar in a clean crisp font? This phrase radiates an optimistic energy; a hard-work-pays-off spirit.

Or does it?

The ambiguity and multi-tiered interpretations are what makes "Candide" this year's choice for the Penn Reading Project.

"The Penn Reading Project gives freshman a taste of what's coming," said project director David Fox. "There's an intense exchange of information that says this is what it means to be in the Ivy League."

For the past decade, Penn has been requiring its freshmen to read a designated book and, during new student orientation, participate in a group discussion led by faculty members from all fields of disciplines. The Penn Reading Project staff selects the book after soliciting the opinions of faculty, staff and students.

"andide, according to an essay by John Richetti, an English professor, is "what literary historians would call a philosophical tale, a short narrative meant to illustrate ideas, to prove a point, to make a case."

"Candide" is the name of the main character, a young man who, in the face of overwhelming obstacles, adheres to an optimistic philosophy as taught by his teacher Pangloss though by the end of the text he begins to distrust those teachings.

"We find that students respond best to books in which they can relate to the principle characters," Fox said. "Although 'Candide' is set in an different century, there are many common themes."

Carol Deutsch, a professor of physiology in Penn School of Medicine, has been involved with the Penn Reading Project since its inception.

"Many of the texts that have been read are so distant from what we might be reading. It's a challenge to find a way to approach the text for yourself and then develop an intelligent means of instructing the text and leading a stimulating conversation," Deutsch said. "The texts that have been chosen cross over into many different disciplines. Any media that does that arouses intellectual curiosity."

Text used in previous years have included the autobiographical "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," Mary Shelley "Frankenstein," "Einstein Dreams" by Alan Lightman, "Arcadia" by Tom Stoppard, Ernest Hemingway "A Moveable Feast," Garry Wills"Lincoln at Gettysburg," Maxine Hong Kingston "The Woman Warrior," Michael Frayn "Copenhagen" and Franz Kafka "The Metamorphosis."