Gulliver's Travels (Penguin Classics)

Rating:
Summary: A bleak vision of human future
Review: I am rather disappointed by the book that definitely is a classic. Lilliput is just another image of monarchy, but in no way different from what Swift knew. The criticism comes from the scale of the people who are extremely small. Brogdingnag does not change this approach, only the scale of the people who are extremely big, though in this case there is a direct criticism of the exploitation the « grotesque » Gulliver is the object of. Laputa, Balnibarbi and Luggnagg show a strange floating saucer in a kingdom dominated by unpractical scientists who try to do everything upside down. It is a satire of scientists in general who are so little concerned by the welfare of the community that they can ruin just for the sake of implementing their hypotheses. Glubbdubdrib is funnier because it enables Gulliver to meet all kinds of people from the past and this leads to remarks about philosophers or politicians or generals that show how small and little and even tiny they were. Japan only shows the extreme anti-christian policy that can be reached there and the extreme self-centeredness of the Dutch, which is probably a criticism of the crown in England. But the last voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms is by far the best because here we reach both a severe criticism of the human race reduced to its animal instincts and behaviors, and a utopian society in which evil does not exist because it cannot even be conceived, because it is totally out of reach for these kind reasoning and reasonable horses. And yet Gulliver is expelled because he is a Yahoo, no matter what, and the natural reason of these dominant horses leads to rejection, after having found in Gulliver's explanations a solution to get rid of the Yahoo by sterilizing them into extinction, just the way men do with horses in European countries, just a little bit more systematically. This leads to the idea that genocide and ethnic cleansing is a natural attitude, an attitude that goes along with natural reason that says that the species standing in the way of reason have to be exterminated. But the book never reaches that level of thinking, since Swift could not know about such policies that will flourish in later centuries, and yet the Irish occupation should lead him to some idea of what such a principle can lead to. Thus at a second level of reading we find a criticism of « natural reason » though it is not fully expressed and developed. After all it is that « natural reason » that led, already in Swift's times, to the genocide of Indians in America : they were not human, they were attributed all kinds of shortcomings like aggressivity, the love of war, the lack of cleanliness, a strong stench, and many other elements of the type. We can even note that beyond the genocide, the sterilisation policy will be implemented, but not on males, rather on females, and this in some US states up to the 1950s and maybe the 1960s. And this policy initiated by the Scandinavians in the early 20th century (and it was to last at least fifty or sixty decades) was to be systematically used against physically or psychologically impaired people. Hitler will follow that model, pushing it one bit further. In a way the book becomes then some vision of the future. This book hence is a prefiguration of many other books on the subject, such as « The time Machine », « Brave New World », « Animal Farm », etc. This book seems to be the archetype of a literary genre in English literature, and of course the archetype of many films dealing with the same subject, particularly extraterrestrials.To conclude I will say that such a book is definitely not for children even if it is often assigned to young children in some schools.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Rating:
Summary: A wickedly satirical travel journal.
Review: This book is written as a satire, but it is also a well-known children's book. Both children and adults alike can enjoy this story and the lessons that it teaches. It is important to read edited and abridged versions to children since these versions take out the wicked satire that runs through this book, and make it more of an adventure story. In it we see our hero, Gulliver, on four different voyages and his surprise landings in four different places. But, don't be misled - this book is a savage one, and Swift takes aim at the British people in general and the Whigs in particular. He pokes fun at various political, academic and social institutions. In it we meet the Lilliputians, and the giants in Brobdingnag. We also meet the sorcerers on Glubdubdrib and the immortals on Luggnagg. The stories are quite violent and Gulliver is exposed to some fairly rough and scary treatment, but it creates a wanderlust in him that he can't assuage. The wit is scathing, and the satire is pointed, but good reading nonetheless.

Rating:
Summary: Disquieting read.
Review: This is of course one of the most famous works of literature in the world, especially thanks to the Japanese, who realised a consistent amount of cartoons for the home-video market inspired by it.
I must say I was not very surprised by this work, as I knew from the start whre everything would go. The letter and the spirit of Gulliver's Travels are one of the most divulgated to students from primary till high school. That's why I particulartly liked the account of Laputa, which is one of the lesser known episodes (and I looked forward to it, since Italo Calvino had done a remarkable publicity for it once). Especially the Academy of Sciences of that noble country had an interesting Sadian feeling (Swift is one of those philosophic minds which delight in fustigating philosophers); plus, you could witness the explosion of a dog.
There's rather a disquieting feeling hanging around these pages. From neurotic midgets who receive rains of urine on their heads, giants with a deformed and stinking skin (not different from our own, if we could magnify it adequately, the author says), to people who after they've come home from a long voyage, prefer talking to two horses and have to hold a handkerchief in front of their nose when they're with their wives and children. Vanitas vanitatum, memento mori. No wonder Swift was an Irish clergymen. But this exposes also a difficulty in his social criticism; generally, we point towards him as a spur to reform. But, how can a work with such a deeply rooted convinction in the decline of humanity stimulate to politicalaction. rather, ity is an invitation to a stoic ideal of life, not unlike Voltaire's in "Candide".

Rating:
Summary: Read it to your children to turn them into pessimists.
Review: _Gulliver's Travels_ has been comfortably wrapped in a bookcover of sorts which presents it as a cozy fairy tale for young readers. Yet I know of no book so utterly anti-human. Gulliver, the narrator, is an elegant writer who sets himself up as an ideal vehicle for irony-- that is, he is totally sincere. He states the facts, often in terms of measurements, and records his travels quite faithfully. He's a bit dull, perhaps, but at least he's a careful observer. And in so recording his observations he undermines, completely turns on its head, all that we value in humanity. How? Gulliver-- Swift, really-- reduces everything to a matter of perspective or proportion. It's a shockingly decedent approach. For suddenly the fair perfumed skin of a young lady, enlarged hundreds of times, is a dark-haired surface with moon-craters and a horrid stench. Is this who we really are? Only our eyes and nose cannot detect the truth? The pleasant image of Gulliver tied in tiny ropes by a tiny people is destroyed by a certain Swiftian madness, a sense that humans are-- in short-- vile. Read closely then try walking down the street and looking these two-legged creatures in the eye.