Gulliver’s Travels (Penguin Classics)

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Gulliver's Travels (Penguin Classics)

Tags: 18th century britlit historical dimensions and perspectives magic carpet ride politics british trips and journeys jonathan swift fiction gulliver yahoo humanity novel dangerous books action literature classics adventure penguin classics satire classic literature

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        Gulliver’s Travels (Penguin Classics)Shipwrecked castaway Lemuel Gulliver’s encounters with the petty, diminutive Lilliputians, the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the abstracted scientists of Laputa, the philosophical Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos give him new, bitter insights into human behavior. Swift’s fantastic and subversive book remains supremely relevant in our own age of distortion, hypocrisy, and irony.

Edited with an Introduction by Robert DeMaria, Jr.

  • amazon.com Sales Rank: #9016 in Book
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Misanthropic and proud of it by reenum
Swift’s masterwork has lost none of its bite. His acerbic misanthropy is on full display here.

As the book progresses, Swift’s contempt for humanity grows. This is partly what made the book so compelling for me. Gulliver is only truly happy when he is among the Houyhnhnms, the horse people in the final part of the book. He develops such a dislike for humans that he finds it hard to re-acclimate upon returning to his family in England. What is compelling is that Swift was so obviously misanthropic, yet was able to get away with it. It really speaks to his skill as a novelist. In the hands of a lesser writer, this book would have come out horribly wrong.

Swift’s descriptions of the different worlds are something to behold. As the reader, I could clearly picture each place in my mind. Swift gives the reader just enough to vividly imagine the world Gulliver is in at that time. Swift has the idea that the reader can do some of the work on his own, which is sadly not something authors ascribe to these days. This is partly the reason why this book is such a classic.

A wonderful commentary on the follies and shortcomings of humanity.

amazingly good read by K. Josic
It took me a while to get to this book - it kept being recommended
by friends, but I was a bit put off by the effort I thought I would have to
put into reading a book written 300 years ago. Well, I was really suprised -
“Gulliver’s Travels” is easier to reads, and is certainly written
much better, than most modern novels. Swift certainly didn’t
have too high an opinion about humanity, but rarely was
he heavy handed. Thus he is entertaining even when he is
preachy.

I agree that the book was so popular because it succeeded on
so many different levels. It must have been outstanding political
satire in its time (the full effect has, not surprisingly, diminished
over time). However, it also reads well as a parody of travel
literature, a fairy tale, or speculative fiction.

NOT Bringing Home the Bacon! by First Things First
Our hero Gulliver and his wife could use some counseling. It seems that every time he plops down on the sofa with his better-half and children, Gulliver gets restless and needs to go have another adventure. (Did they have sofas back then? If not, how did people crash out in front of their TV sets?) And he lives in idyllic old England, go figure!

Each time he does this (gets the traveling jones) he hops aboard some ship, tantamount to suicide in those days, eats salted meat and spoiled porridge for a few weeks, months or years, (unless there is a Chili’s or Olive Garden nearby along the way–but he always seems to forget his coupons,) generally shipwrecks and sooner or later encounters some bizarre form of intelligent life in whatever fairyland he has found for himself this time, in whatever chapter of the book he happens to be sojourning in at this particular intersection of the time-space continuum.

Usually he is held captive, and then embosomed or exploited by whoever the freaks of nature are this time around, invariably escapes and by a series of miracles eventually finds his way home again, only to discover the same boring wife and children at the hearth waiting patiently despite the years that have passed without so much as a text message.

Along the way we are treated to Swift’s amazing writing, great humor, wit and stellar imagination. Highly recommended, but it takes a bit of work to get through the whole thing.

a fantastic book by M. H. Levenson
This was excellent. I didn’t think I’d ever want to read Gulliver’s Travels, the eighteenth century English satire by Jonathan Swift. But I couldn’t put the book down. Now it was much a satire on the then current English royal system but what he writes can really almost be a satire on any political system. You can transpose it to be a satire on any American President.

The Greatest Book! by Mr B
Gulliver’s travel is a great book about adventure. He was washed off his ship to shore. Next thing he knows he’s tied down to the ground.

I liked this book because it was full of adventure where he met many tiny people that he did not know.

I also liked it because there were two tribes that he made friends with, which is very exciting.

Finally, I liked the book because the people in both tribes were enemies and fought a lot of the time which was really cool. They stopped fighting when Gulliver arrived because he pulled all the boats of the other tribe to the land of Liliput.

I recommend this book for all ages especially those people who love adventure.

(Review by Tristan)

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