Gulliver's Travels

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It's a hit!

As I read this novel, I was sorry that I hadn't ever started it sooner! I was intrigued and amused by Jonathan Swift's use of outrageous fiction as... (show more)

As I read this novel, I was sorry that I hadn't ever started it sooner! I was intrigued and amused by Jonathan Swift's use of outrageous fiction as a portrayal of a fictitious autobiography meant to read as if it were nonfiction. Lemuel Gulliver's adventures to the islands of Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and the Continent, and the land of the Houyhnhnms are each so distinctive and wildly unbelieveable, but told in such a convincing manner that one can't help but visualize each volume as if it were actually an existing world in its own right. The contrasts of the prideful, ambitious six inch tall Emperor of Lilliput with the humble, naive nature of the 60 foot giant King of Brobdingnag attack the vices of human society concerning greed and dictatorship, while constantly dehumanizing Gulliver as his position is reversed from the role of monstrous giant in Lilliput to that of a miniature 'creature' on Brobdingnag. The flighty, irrational abstract thinkers of the flying island of Laputa who require the use of flappers in order to maintain conversations is Swift's way of criticizing governments for their detached, estranged relationship from the common people, as they are represented on the Continent that lies below the flying island. As another opposite on this spectrum, the Houyhnhnms are a race of talking horses that value rationality and community over individuality and emotional attachment, and their savage, human-like neighbours called "Yahoos" are a representation of humanity at its worst. While the entirety of "Gulliver's Travels" may serve a critique of society and its follies, at its true heart, it tells the story of a man's quest for the perfect civilization in a utopia that does not exist. (show less)

 

 

by Facebook User

No, it's a flop!

Quote: "But, by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but con... (show more)

Quote: "But, by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wringed and extorted from you, 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."

I just thought this book was OK. I know it's a satire and there WERE some funny parts, but most of the book was so very dry that I found myself almost dozing off everytime I set out to read some of it. Swift's novel reminds me a lot of Voltaire's Candide. I think the thing that bothered me the most is that this almost read as a history book. Lemuel Gulliver details of his journeys to these strange and undocumented lands, which is fairly entertaining, then beyond that the narrator just tells of how he tries to learn their customs and language and convey his to them. I just didn't enjoy it that much. (show less)

 

 

by Charles Glenn

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  Who would have expected that I would come away from this book liking it so very much? Trying to read it on my own, I failed, but reading it in class helped me to see it in context, and appreciate it as a funny, thoughtful, and sometimes cruel work, a satire that can be real fun and thought-provoking once you get into the right mood for reading it.
  Jonathan Swift was an Irish-born Tory who possessive of a famous aversion to humantiy in general. (Or so I am apt to classify him. There is someth... (show more)

  Who would have expected that I would come away from this book liking it so very much? Trying to read it on my own, I failed, but reading it in class helped me to see it in context, and appreciate it as a funny, thoughtful, and sometimes cruel work, a satire that can be real fun and thought-provoking once you get into the right mood for reading it.
  Jonathan Swift was an Irish-born Tory who possessive of a famous aversion to humantiy in general. (Or so I am apt to classify him. There is something charming about misanthropes, one can really sympathize with them when one is cranky.) His Captain Lemuel Gulliver ends up stranded in various wondrous and edifying lands. I needn't tell you about Lilliput (six inch high people) and Brobdingnag (giants), but you might have forgotten Laputa, the floating island, and the land of the H----'s (don't bother me with the bloody spelling), those uber-intelligent horses. It's that last part, with the H----'s that is pretty shocking even today. You and me are both Yahoos of a kind, and Gulliver sails back to his people in raft with a sail made from Yahoo-skins. With Yahoo meat as provisions.

  But there are lots of disturbing, warped things in this book. I remember passages in Brobdingnag with the most fondness. There Gulliver, reduced to the status of a plaything, is quite helpless, and delightfully so. He is dropped into a bowl of cream by a dwarf and embarrasingly discommoded by a pet monkey. The ladies at the court take a perverse delight in bouncing him up and down on their breasts. Gulliver, being tiny, is able to note the physical human imperfections of his captors magnified--cancerous lumps, blemishes of the skin, moles and wrinkles appear in all their sordidness. And what interesting things these are to read about, in retrospect. I think that we as modern human beings--I mean as Westerners, swamped in our materialism and complacency--need to sample the muck in our "entertainment" sometimes, just to get in touch with reality. Tear yourself away from MTV, from the supermodels and the actors, from semi-kiddie porn anime, and admit that the physicality of our human bodies can be pretty disgusting.

  And also the psychology of Us, when we don't study ourselves and our values--

  Gulliver himself is a little man, a contemptible nincompoop most of the time. I didn't notice it while I was reading the book, but afterwards, I thought about it, and decided so. When he recommends gunpowder to the King of Brobdingnag, he even comes across as significantly--stupid. (Is there logic in presenting a country of giants with the ability to make gunpowder, when you and the rest of your kind are 1/100th of their size? Derr. Not really. Even if you want to suck up to said king.)

  But it's Swift on whom I can't quite place my finger... The more I think about him alongside his book, the more ambiguous he seems. Does he really mean to present the values of the H----'s as Good with a capital G in all particulars? (I was struck with their arrogant bitchiness, myself. Perhaps Swift would dislike me.) How about the Lilliuputian way of raising children, is that meant to be construed as desirable? (I do like it better than the cruel Puritanical strain of childraising, all that honor your mother & father ad nauseum beyond the bounds of compassion kind of crap--but the Lilliputian way doesn't seem to allow for that thing called love, either...)

  I dunno. You tell me.

  Ahh, but don't tell me Gulliver's Travels is outdated, or boring, 'cause I won't believe you. (show less)

   

  by Matthew Allec on Sep 06, 2009 at 06:32PM

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  Aristotle emphasizes the essential role played by socialization in shaping individual behavior. For Aristotle, we are the sum total of the quality of our interpersonal relationships in the institutional, or collectively organized, environments he analyzes in the “Politics.” Today we might call this emphasis an examination of the influence of nurture, or society, in determining what we may become. For Aristotle, unlike Rousseau, each individual mediates his identity through a network of social... (show more)

  Aristotle emphasizes the essential role played by socialization in shaping individual behavior. For Aristotle, we are the sum total of the quality of our interpersonal relationships in the institutional, or collectively organized, environments he analyzes in the “Politics.” Today we might call this emphasis an examination of the influence of nurture, or society, in determining what we may become. For Aristotle, unlike Rousseau, each individual mediates his identity through a network of social forces that will make him what he is. Without this shaping influence, we would be precisely, and implausibly, nothing whatsoever because our native state is essentially political in the sense that he understands that term. The highest good within individuals is reflected, and made possible, by the quality of the social organization in which they develop. Virtue in turn, for those who have this quality, will shape the society that made them possible to produce socially desirable ends. And just as happiness within individuals will show degrees of possible perfection, so too will the society that nurtures them. Happiness therefore is unachievable without collective organization. (show less)

   

  by Marina Ley on Nov 14, 2009 at 07:42PM

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