Gulliver's Travels (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) Paperback – Unabridged, September 18, 1996

Gulliver's Travels is such a great classic that it is difficult to write any sort of regular review. So instead I have compiled a list of observations.Isaac Asimov, the distinguished writer, scientist, and Sci-fi buff, speculates that the made-up languages in Gulliver's Travels are basically nonsense; then he turns around and speculates that Lilliput is a corruption of "little bit". Good guess! - but maybe it's "little part" or "little pint"? Asimov also gives a other cases where highly plausible decipherments can be made.Interestingly, Swift's made-up languages often have a definite Italian ring. Swift himself says so much when commenting on the language of Laputa. Did Swift have a particularly admiration for Italian? Did he study it?It is usually assumed that most events and characters in Gulliver are veiled satires on England, and its misrule of Ireland. Perhaps. But maybe Swift was also poking fun at the Italian states. The "good old days" for which Swift pined may then be those of the Roman empire.It is often claimed that the fourth book is the best, and the third book the weakest. I disagree! Possibly from a purely stylistic standpoint the fourth book, on the horse-people, IS the best. But this is not enough to make it the most interesting. The Houyhnhnms represent Swift's idea of purely rational, benign beings. They don't lie, and have virtually no crime. But frankly, they are boring! They appear to have neither dreams nor aspirations, and little imagination. They spend much of their time in busy-work - apparently so as to stay out of trouble, in the manner of certain monastic orders. Perhaps the real trouble is that humans have a limited capacity for imagining perfect goodness. Look at the divine comedy triptych painted by Bosch. Which is the most interesting panel? The one on heaven? I don't think so!The third book (the one about the flying island of Laputa) contains a wealth of ideas - even if hastily written. Asimov points out that, unlike the other books, in the third book Swift takes considerable pains to explain "the marvelous" in scientific terms -- at least to the extent such explanations are possible. This is a hallmark of science fiction, as opposed to fantasy. A strong case can be made for Swift as the first true sci-fi writer. Consider, for example, his amazingly prophetic description of the two moons of Mars.Here is another example of Swifts amazing prescience. It is from Laputa, and illustrates the major concerns of Laputa's scientists:"These people are under continual Disquietudes, never enjoying a minutes Peace of Mind; and their disturbances proceed from causes which very little effect the rest of Mortals. ... That, the Earth very narrowly escaped a Brush from the last Comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to Ashes; and that the next, which they have calculated for One and Thirty years hence, will probably destroy us."Don't we incessantly hear about the grave dangers comets and asteroids pose to us?

Great satirical story. Now I know where to term YAHOO comes from and I think the forth voyage was the most interesting although the Liliputians is the one most known.Somewhat difficult following the old English but well worth it.

As a student I remember that I loved this story very much. My old penguin edition had been lost. So bought it again for my children.

You can't really review a book like Gulliver's Travels the way you might review a similar book written three hundred years later. Of course, you *could*, and focus on the plot, the characters, the themes and prose style and that sort of thing, but it would be missing the point. Those elements aren't why Gulliver's Travels is famous, or widely read, or influential. (If you want such a review though, the thumbnail version is that the plot is functional, the characters embody the satirical purpose for which they were designed and no more, and the prose is standard eighteenth-century stuff, occasionally venturing into parodies of 18th century prose, which are not easy for the untrained eye to distinguish. Some of the episodes, such as Gulliver kidnapped by a monkey, are amusing, and I am never able to think of soft-boiled eggs without thinking of Catholics and Protestants. On the other hand, this *is* the 18th century, and there are a wearying number of jokes about excrement.)Instead, there are two main elements to think about. First, the effect that Gulliver's Travels had on the future of literature, both in a broad sense -- along with lesser Swift works, it essentially launched the genre of satire, which is still a vibrant etc. -- and more narrowly. References to Lilliput and Brobdingnag and the Yahoos and that sort of thing are some of the puzzle pieces that Western literature is made out of. If you want to understand them, or make erudite conversation, this would probably be a good book to read, regardless of its literary merits (Advanced readers should be warned that this familiarity is a double-edged sword: Nobody knows what Struldbrugs or Glubbdubdrib are, so don't bother bringing them up.)Also worth consideration is what Gulliver's Travels says about English society in 1726. And here, I'm sorry to say, the answer is, "not as much as Swift thinks it does." His complaints about Georgian England are veiled in allegory in the first parts, and devolve into naked rants as the novel progresses. And what sort of things does Swift complain about? The national debt is a favorite topic; the dishonesty of politicians and lawyers, the idiocy of professors and "projectors", the decay of a glorious past, and sexual immorality.It could be Swift's influence as a social critic, if you want to look at it that way, but you can read this stuff anywhere. You could hear it on AM radio right now, for heaven's sake. And if you're reading Gulliver's Travels to learn how society 300 years ago differed from our own, well, consider this book evidence for the null hypothesis.