Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

...but, as I recently realised, Gulliver's Travels is more than just a tale of small and big. There really is something for everyone here. Travels to new lands and meeting new peoples for the science fiction fan, political satire for the historian, gross out humour for the child in us all, and best of all a classic tale of humanity explaining what it means to be human for everyone. When I originally wrote this op in 2001 I had just re-read Jonathan ...
...had the pleasure of re-visiting Gulliver's lands in their first edition form as part my freelance work so I thought it must be time for an update. The first link to Sloane and his times that I found was the idea of the absurd travel narrative. Gulliver's adventures tell of his adventures in strange, undiscovered parts of the world and such books were very popular, and ripe for satire, in 1726. Swift mocks the over zealous attention to detail provided ...

tyger 20.04.2001 (16.01.2004) · Read full review
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Review of Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

...unison: "Well Duh…") Gulliver's Travels is perhaps the best satirical novel ever written. The eponymous hero embarks on his chosen career as a ships' surgeon but things quickly start going wrong when a storm wrecks the ship. With no other apparent survivors, Gulliver finds himself adrift, but eventually reaches land. The land is inhabited - but the inhabitants aren't quite what you'd call human… His travels thereafter lead him from one strange group ...
...enjoyed the satirical element of Gulliver's Travels (though to me the storyline is strong enough for it to have been a good book even without the satire), but my wife just thought Gulliver was a grumpy old moaner - so I guess it's all a matter of taste. (Women in my family have always got in trouble for their literary interpretations though - apparently my mum was frowned on by her English teacher for complaining that Romeo only dumped Rosalind for ...

CaptainDisaster 04.08.2005 (06.08.2005) · Read full review
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Review of Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

I hope you know this is a children's story. Forget what people have said. It is a children's story for a very good reason. But I shall not explain why yet. In fact I shall not even explain the book just yet. Let me tell you a bit about Mr. Jonathon Swift or you will NEVER understand "Gulliver's Travels". During the potato famine in Ireland in the 1700s many people wanted to aid Ireland like Live Aid in the 1980s, but the government did not. Jonathon ...
...use their own logic against them and so he wrote a short little essay which stated: I can't see what the Irish are complaining about they have hundreds of children, I have seen the Catholics breeding them by the ton, so if the adults are hungry then they start eating their babies. It is a good sustainable source of food." ------------------------------------------------------------------ So that is the man - so what of this "Gulliver's Travels" ...

coleecip 19.01.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

While I was growing up I always saw this novel as a children's book about a traveller and a load of funny tiny people but this book is much more than that. It is an exploration of world as we see it and a truth none of us would like to admit. Swift takes his character Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon, to the four corners of the Earth not only into contact with Liliputians but with the giants of Brobdinag, the flying island of Laputa, into a world ...
...to the island of the Hwinm and the Yahoos where he realises the truth about himself and humanity. By putting his character into such strange scenarios. Swift shows how mankind reacts to different roles of which Swift has merely exagerated in his many worlds. The character of Gulliver is a traveller and a learner and takes the reader on his journey all the way and leaves them knowing a little more about themself. ...

explainable 04.08.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

Swift published Gulliver's Travels in 1726 'to vex the world rather than to divert it', the famous quote. Although many a child has read this book, it takes an adult to milk it to the extremes. With a bit of analysing you will realise that it is a scornful and incisive satire on man. The story is a journey through small and large, and gulliver meets many strange things along the way. Every child must read this, and read it again when they are oldr ...

BejayAlford 06.08.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

To start, this book is NOT a children's story, and never was intended to be, so don't give it to children unless they have a real understanding of things. The most famous part is the first section, when he visits the Lilliputians, but there are more islands he visits on his journeys which he describes. It has to be one of the all-time 'greats' of literature. I would recommend that you read an edition which has footnotes, particularly the Oxford edition ...

RickYard 28.02.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

This classic tale is about the adventures of Gulliver into Lilliput and a large civilization with very small people in it. There are other adventures as well, and this is a fascinating, and exciting story which I really enjoyed. Swift excels himself in this catalogue of adventures, and I recommend it to all readers who enjoy action and adventure. It is very easy to read, and I read the whole novel in one sitting. It is certainly very absorbing and ...

robertjake 30.09.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift