Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
★★★☆
Most people have at least heard of Gulliver’s Travels and
it’s hard not to have a few preconceived notions pop into your head for a book
like that. I knew the general idea before I read it, but I was surprised by the
specific observations Gulliver shares about each race he visits. A shipwreck
strands Gulliver with the Lilliputs and a series of adventures follow.
Originally published as a satire, the book is now read by
all ages. He travels all over and meets the strangest people. He makes
observations about their ways of life and in doing so often tells more about
himself and his prejudices than he means to. Each new group teaches him
something about the way he sees the world.
The Lilliputs are a tiny people, so small they can fit in
his hand. They have to make 100 meals just to feed him. The very next group he
discovers are giants and he is now the tiny figure that can fit in their hand.
His observations of both of these groups were not always what you would expect.
Sometimes he remarks on the texture of their skin. He even makes some hilarious
comments about watching one of the giants nurse and being terrified by her
enormous breast. The woman who takes care of him in the giants’ land sews him
shirts lets him to use items from her dollhouse.
There’s a lot of humor worked into the stories. At one
point he gets in a fight with the queen’s dwarf and is dropped into a giant
bowl of cream and then stuck into a marrow bone. There are houseflies that
constantly plague him because they're the size of birds. He can see when the
flies lay eggs in the giants’ food because they look so large to him. Gulliver
also discovers the Houyhnhnms, a race of horses that are superior to all the
other races he describes.
The thing I loved about it was that it made you look at your
own world a little differently. It makes you notice things that you normally
take for granted. The whole book is a fascinating exercise in how our situation
and surroundings affect the way we see the world. Swift manages to do this in a
humorous way, never taking himself too seriously. It broke my heart a little
that Gulliver kept leaving his family to travel and then when he finally
returns he never quite gets over leaving the Houyhnhnms.
BOTTOM LINE: At times clever, at others dry, this classic
gives the reader a lot to think about when they view their own society. It’s a
reminder that so much of what we believe is based on what we already know. The
more we learn about other cultures, the more we can understand them and
appreciate their strengths.
I love Fanda’s thoughts in her review here.
