Gulliver's Travels

Rating:
Summary: "When bending my eyes downward..."
Review: "...I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."

There are many things "Gulliver's Travels": funny, comedic, satirical, depressing, inspiring, etc. But there is one thing it is not: a book for children. If Swift knew this he would laugh and telll us to boil our children and eat them! ;)

Swift is most likely the greatest satirist that ever lived and his intellect is very prominent in "Gulliver's Travels". He creates his own fool, Lemuel Gulliver, a man of great book intellect but too much wind in the ears. Swift sends him on little voyages to other countries not to give the reader something interesting to read but to shine a light of everyone's eyes. That's why Gulliver is so flat. Swift does not want the reader to understand Gulliver or even like Gulliver because "Gulliver's Travels" is NOT a novel and Gulliver is not a character, he's the human race surrounded by the human race.

Gulliver leaves his wife, who does not question him, and ends up on the isle of the Lilliputians, near Madagascar. There he is bound up and taken as prisoner of tiny people, only six inches in height. He proves these people that he is not only a genteel servant but he is quite a disgusting pig, seeing nothing wrong on urinating all over. What's so wrong with that? But Gulliver's disgusting ways are not the mind grabber. Look at the Lilliputians: they are petty little buggers making their govermental officials do tricks to get elected. Are we not the same?

Gulliver arrives at home only to leave his wife anbd family for the Brobdingnagians, the isle of the giants near the Cape of Good Hope. Now, it is reversed. Gulliver must endure the putrid stinche of these iodious animals and be used as a sex toy for the ladies. Obviously not for children. Swift takes from his poems to show how people may look beautiful on the outside, but we're really disgusting creatures underneath all the perfume. It's quite comical when he describes the farmer's wife's breasts. It made me think how men idiolize a woman for her breasts when they're really giants lump of flesh for nursing.

Part III is quick, Gulliver returns home, leaves and encounters four different people all near Japan. The Laputa's are hilarious, like some of our masterminds today, focusing on the higher level of thinking and rejecting the fundamental steps to these levels. Lagado is very similar except that these people extract sunbeams from cucumbers and do all sorts of ridiculous things that mean nothing at all. The Glubbdubdribs really caught my eye in that they are really intellectual but take pride in their sodomy, raping, incest, theft and other immoral acts. People seem to think genius equals insanity and insanity equals immorality. These people feel they can easily get away with whatever they deem well because they are intellectual.

Gulliver returns home, but I think he finally realizes he is deprived because he gets his older wife pregnant. He leaves her and encounters the Yahoos, the Id in Freudian theory and the Houyhnhnms, the super ego. This is my favourite Part and probably the saddest because we see what a lot of religious people do: reject the ego for the super ego (I do not mean manly ego, I am talking about Freud). I will not further discuss this part since this is the best part.

All throughout this satire, Swift throws a wet blanket on politics, religion (hypocritical religion) and the human race in general. We need to be ego, be human, but no petty, shiftless, disgusting or ignorant. I think Swift truly understands the complexities and simplicities of human nature.

Rating:
Summary: dry and boring
Review: I don't even see how kids could be interested in this book, let alone adults. I guess it's a snapshot of the time in which it was written, but it does not stand the test of time. There is no suspense, no character development, too many insignificant details, and it's all told in the most dry, boring tone. I expected it to be enchanting and spark the imagination like "Alice in Wonderland" or like just about any fairy tale I've ever read, but it was not. The "political irony" was hackneyed and there was nothing in the story or the descriptions to trigger my imagination. I couldn't read past the first adventure.

Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Satire Ever Written
Review: "Gulliver's Travels," one of the bestselling books of the eighteenth century along with Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," is a satirical account of a great man with a passion for travel. As he progresses through the four mythic countries, he is shipwrecked, escaped with his life, shot at, wounded, and bruised. A little too much for a "children's tale," some may say. I agree- it is not your average sugary fairy-story. "Gulliver's Travels" was written for the younger generation of the time but wasn't intended for it. Satirical innuendoes hinting at sex, religion, and most if not all governmental bodies, are not easily spotted (I could only see them when my professor pointed at them), but the book is not based on them- it is one of the finest novels in the language, and should be enjoyed as such. A pleasure to read at any age- I enjoyed it greatly when I first read it at the age of 10, and now, some years later, coming back to this short novel was like coming back home.

Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: I missed reading Gulliver's Travels as a child, only to read it as an adult and discover that I hadn't deprived myself of much at all. As a children's tale, Gulliver's Travels is moderately interesting, with a few brief moments of humor. It is neither riveting nor drab, but simply - average.

Despite the preface of the Baronet Books edition, which claims that Gulliver's Travels is a "masterpiece of satire", I found the irony to be blatant and trite, and, as a result, predictable and boring.

While certainly not a great read, it was worth the half hour I invested in it (barely).

tpm
March 18, 2002

Rating:
Summary: The Be-All and End-All
Review: Swift is by far the most effective satirist I have ever read. Voltaire restrains himself with logic, Rableais occupies too long a space, H.L. Mencken and Bierce wallow in bitterness. But it is Swift that has woven a wonderful tapestry that fully diagrams the human condition and his takes on it. The book is very contradictory because of the fact that he pairs one vice with one virtue in every chapter. His overall theme is that moderation is the only way that we can avoid being so ridiculous as these people.
This book has been berated by some as despondent or dated, but Swift was not thinking four hundred years into the future. However, it still packs a punch if you are willing to inform yourself on the times. Part one is a superlative criticism of George I, II, and Anne Stuart of England. All of these leaders were naive and at the disposal of their advisers (like Walpole). Brobdignag is an attack on the pursuit of vanity by people. TO read the description of the mother suckling her baby, will make any person cringe. Laputa, the highlight of the book, is an adequate criticism of science. He charges that they are pure theorists and not pragmatists. I think that this chapter is heavily dedicated to Isaac Newton, who was involved in political committees left and right and was known for being a bitter, ponderous person. After criticizing history, the novel ends with "Hyounhymns" and "Yahoos". I guess that "Yahoo" derives from the biblical "Jehu". The end of this one is devoted to mocking the absolute extremes of the human condition-- dystopia and utopia. He comes to the conclusion that both are ridiculous and divorces himself from his family.
The key is to read between the lines of his tone and his facts.
To end, the book has been berated by scholars as simplistic, but that is the trap, to convince the reader of being absurd and playful, when there are really layers of thought behind them.
Finally, he does criticize religion; notice the passages that say "we {debate} whether bread be flesh, flesh bread, blood grape juice, and grape juice blood" Nothing was too sacred for Swift, and that is why I recommend the most penetrating analysis of the human condition to come out of Europe, or most of literature.

Rating:
Summary: Review On Gulliver's Travels
Review: I enjoyed Gulliver's Travels because it is not just an adventure story but a book of criticms and opinions by the author, Johnathan Swift. For instance,in the lst country Gulliver visits is ruled by horses. He does not want to go back to England because tgher is politcians, lawyers, theives, and drunks there. Horses do not have those things. I think what Swift was trying to say was thatif humans had the minds of horses then life would be a whole lot better. Throught the whole story Gulliver meets many interesting people. He meets tiny people, large people, and magicians. The only thing I did not like about this book was that it was a little hard to understand in some parts.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful satire masquerading as fantasy
Review: This is, along with "A Modest Proposal", one of Jonathan Swift's infamous understated, biting satires. At the very least edgy, and often outright misanthropic, Swift's writing is not for the optimist. However, his writing here is both brutally honest and imaginative, always delivered with a straight face. It's a clever book, and his adventures are always interesting. As simply fantasy, the book also succeeds - it raises many points about the situations Gulliver gets himself into that a lesser writer would never have thought of.

The only real disadvantage of "Gulliver's Travels" (and the reason it only gets four stars) is the occasionally excessive prose. One section in particular during Gulliver's stay at the Floating Island is almost a sedative, and these parts show up often enough to make the reading an occasional chore. Nevertheless, this is still one of the best satirical novels around, and the story is entertaining on its own. It could have used some editing, but it's very good regardless.

Rating:
Summary: Must Be Read
Review: Gulliver's Travels details a sailor's journey to four very different fantastical societies. The first, Lilliput, is populated by miniature people who fight wars over the proper way to break an egg. The second, Brobdingnag, is inhabited by giants who put Gulliver on display as a curiosity. The third consists of a kingdom governed by a king who lives on a floating island; the kingdom also contains an academy of scientists performing ineffective experiments, such as trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. The fourth is a society in which human-like creatures are made to serve their horse-like superiors, the Houyhnhnms.

Rating:
Summary: The Hidden Meaning of Gulliver's Travels
Review: Gulliver is portrayed by Swift as an average man of average courage, honesty, compassion, and intellect, a typical Englishmen. But there is nothing typical about Gulliver's travels. What Swift has accomplished by making Gulliver the embodiment of common English values and beliefs and then having him visist far away lands that are really the mirrors of English society is an interesting satirical device. He forces the English reader to unknowingly judge English society, not according to some higher law or pristine observer, but through the lens of their own cherished values. This effectively turns English beliefs and values in on themselves as a test of their merit. Swift echoes this structure by first having Gulliver visit a land of little people, which causes one to ovserve them with scrutiny of Gulliver, who is now the little one. After a series of defferent looks at society throug the first three voyages, Gulliver travels to Houyhnhnmland where the narure of people themselves are given the strongest censure, by being directly paralleled with the loathsome Yahoos. Here Swift bluntly attacks almost every aspect of society, which is then compared to the Yahoos point by point by the Grey Mare. Gulliver and the reader finally identify themselves completely with the Yahoos, and Gulliver decides to abandon Yahooism forever. But, he is then immediately banished brom the island by the Houyhnhnm assembly. This poses an interesting question: What is Swift's final message then about man or his future? The fact that Gulliver is unable to stay with the Houyhnhnms or adher to their principles after leaving the island, does not mean to me that man is doomed. I think Swift is saying man will always be Yahoo, but at the same time I think he is advocating an awareness of our Yahoo nature. And, if we can see ourselves through unmuddied reflecting glass and be honest about our Yahoo nature then we can strive honestly for Houyhnhnm values and abandon saying, or believing in ourselves, "the thing which is not."

Rating:
Summary: A Timeless Classic
Review: Swift's novel is a timeless classic that resonates as clearly with contemporary readers as those in his own time. I did not care for the introduction of this version of Gulliver's Travels, as it did not provide enough historical, social, and political background for novice readers and students.

Also recommended: GULLIVER'S TRAVELS: A WITNESS EXPLORATION OF HUMANITY IN SEARCH OF THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION 'WHO AM I?' by John Murray Also for students: REDEFINING THE SELF: SELECTED ESSAYS ON SWIFT, POE, PINTER, AND JOYCE