REVIEW: Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels
Author: Jonathan Swift

I first read a simplified version of this classic fictional travelogue as a child. The kid's version only included the tale about the tiny residents of Lilliput and its rival kingdom, Blefuscu. I never knew until college there was a lot more to the book than just tiny people declaring war over how to eat eggs properly. I had so much fun reading this book in literature class in college. We picked apart the allegory and laughed at the slightly off-color parts of the book. I enjoyed revisiting the travels of Lemuel Gulliver. I'm glad the book was included in the list of 100 books for The Great American Read.

Lemuel Gulliver is shipwrecked and begins keeping a log of all of his adventures. First he meets tiny people who are amazed at the huge Man Mountain. He escapes Lilliput and before finding his way back to England he travels to a land filled with giants, a country filled with great thinkers who are unable to put their knowledge to any practical use, and a country where savage, deformed humans called Yahoos are the slaves of a race of talking horses. When Gulliver finally returns home he has a hard time returning to his normal life and spends much time in the stables trying to talk to his horses.

I enjoyed re-visiting this story. While on the outside it is an interesting adventure tale about Gulliver's strange travels, underneath the adventure there is much allegory about human nature, politics, social norms, prejudice and racism, injustice and corruption. My favorite part is when the Lilliputian ruler's home is burning down and there isn't enough water to put out the fire. So, Gulliver (being so much larger than the very tiny Lilliputians) decides to wing it -- putting out the fire completely by peeing on it. He is then prosecuted for urinating in the ruler's home. Because he did so in order to save the residence, he is shown mercy (cough, cough). Instead of being executed with poisoned arrows shot into his face, they are willing to just put out both his eyes. Another favorite scene is when he is faced with a giant farmer's wife who breast feeds her baby in his presence. Gulliver is quite taken aback at seeing a breast that is 16 feet in circumference, making commentary that flaws in the (ahem) attributes of English women are much easier to hide because they aren't giant and totally in his face.

I love how Jonathan Swift slams much of the nonsense of the human condition and our flaws while hiding his real intent within the fantastical travelogue of Lemuel Gulliver. The book is both hilarious and thought provoking. I'm so glad I re-read this book. I enjoyed it just as much as I did as a child when I only got part of the tale....and again in college when I studied it in full.

Gulliver's Travels is the 11th book that I have read/re-read as part of The Great American Read. The list of 100 books for GAR are listed here: The Great American Read .   I am going to try to read as many of the books on the list as I can. 11 down....89 to go! :)