Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I have to admit that in my ignorance only one thing popped into my mind whenever I heard Gulliver: Lilliput. So I was surprised about him spending only a short time with the Lilliputians but also travelled to other islands - such with giants living on them (okay, that one was a peninsula), with magicians living on them, to flying islands and to the Houyhnhnms (my favorites!). I definitely will give horses a second sight now!

The story of Gulliver's travels that Swift layed on top of his social/governmental critique was interesting, sometimes thrilling, sometimes not so much but all the time enjoyable to read. I unfortunately can't say the same about the actual intention of the book (and I'm sure that a big reason for this is my not so good knowledge of the English kingdom of the early 18th century). I had the feeling that the author was just whining in big parts and complaining about everything. Still, he is probably right in many ideas and quite a number of them can be transformed into 21st century without changing them (My favorite quote for example is that: "If a prince sends forces into a nation where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living." p. 271f. - doesn't that sound familiar?!). We shouldn't think ourselves so important, we shouldn't lie, we shouldn't harm anyone else...and we should be aware of one or the other horse out there that's much smarter than we are :)

But, dear Mr. Swift, I am afraid you have some serious issues with women...what did they do to you? And why do you have to keep talking about excrements and urinating so often? I would have liked to hear Freud's opinion on your book - giant Gulliver letting down his trousers and peeing on the empress's rooms to prevent them from burning to ashes...isn't this a little too obvious?