Jonathan Swift, Shantal Lopez: Gulliver's Travels (2016, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
176 pages
English language
Published Jan. 6, 2016 by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
For the last 250 years people everywhere have enjoyed reading about Lemuel Gulliver's travels in the strange countries of Lilliput and Brobdingnag. The people of these countries, with all their curiously human failings, come to life in vivid illustrations. Here is a story to make you laugh - but to make you think, too.--GOODREADS
Lemuel Gulliver always dreamed of traveling the world. But when a violent storm claims his ship and casts him adrift among uncharted lands, he is taken to places that he could not even dream of. Traveling to the nation of Lilliput, where the inhabitants measure just centimeters tall, and to Brobdingnag, where they tower into the sky like giants, Gulliver voyages to an island floating above the clouds, visits a race of immortals, and finds himself stranded in a land ruled by horses.
Face to face with warring armies and power-hungry kings, each new journey …
For the last 250 years people everywhere have enjoyed reading about Lemuel Gulliver's travels in the strange countries of Lilliput and Brobdingnag. The people of these countries, with all their curiously human failings, come to life in vivid illustrations. Here is a story to make you laugh - but to make you think, too.--GOODREADS
Lemuel Gulliver always dreamed of traveling the world. But when a violent storm claims his ship and casts him adrift among uncharted lands, he is taken to places that he could not even dream of. Traveling to the nation of Lilliput, where the inhabitants measure just centimeters tall, and to Brobdingnag, where they tower into the sky like giants, Gulliver voyages to an island floating above the clouds, visits a race of immortals, and finds himself stranded in a land ruled by horses.
Face to face with warring armies and power-hungry kings, each new journey makes Gulliver more desperate to find a way back home. But once he discovers the truth about his own land and himself, returning home becomes the last thing he desires. Written by world-renowned satirist, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver s Travels is one of the most gripping and poignant adventures ever told.--FictionDB
Officially titled Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships, Gulliver's Travels is the story of the travels of Lemuel Gulliver, to such exotic places as Lilliput and Brobdingnag.
GOODREADS REVIEWS:
Lisa (Jun 27, 2014) rated it 5 of 5 Stars - it was amazing Shelves: favorites, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die "And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."
I don't think there will ever be a time when Gulliver's Travels doesn't feel like a perfect mirror of humankind. I remember the first time I read it, as a child. I was immeasurably impressed with the sudden insight that things are small or great depending on comparison with other things, and that there are no absolute values. That knowledge, combined with the idea that you learn to understand yourself by seeing your peculiarities through the eyes of people who do not share your social and cultural background, helped me navigate my globetrotting childhood. When I reread the Travels as a grown-up, I focused more on the political satire, finding pleasure in discovering that the typical idiocies of my own time apparently had their correspondences centuries ago. Somehow, that made life easier to bear.
But now I am beginning to wonder. Are the yahoos degenerating further? When will they hit rock bottom? And could we maybe ship off some of our worst yahoos to Lilliput, where they can claim they are great without lying?
Thank Goodness there are authors like Swift, who are capable of making humanists in despair laugh on dark November nights after reading the never-ending misery called news. Oh Lordy, I wish they were fake.
But they are likely to mirror the world - without the wit and irony that Swift added to make life endurable, enjoyable even! That is a quality in an author that is always needed, now more than ever! Yahooooooooooooo!
Matthew (Jan 08, 2013) rated it 5 of 5 Stars - it was amazing: Shelves: favorites, fantasy, classic, required-reading-high-school This was my favorite required reading in high school (well, actually, probably tied with Animal Farm). It was a very pleasant and unexpected surprise. The reference points I had were cartoon re-telling of this from my youth. I only really had an image of Gulliver vs the Lilliputians - and that was only the most basic "giant in a land full of very small people" story-lines (well, they were trying to entertain children, so it doesn't have to get much more complex than that).
But, the book is made up of more stories than just Gulliver as a giant (hence the Travels - plural). The content of these stories is witty and not-so-thinly veiled political and social commentary. In the end, it didn't feel like required reading at all - it was a truly enjoyable adventure I was glad to take!
It was quite a nice book to read. It is a satire, though I am quite sure that I did not notice everything. Actually, if it weren't for the introduction and notes, I would not have recognized a lot of things. But that is probably logical, since there are more notes than pages...
গালিভার'স ট্রাভেলস ছোটবেলায় যখন পড়েছি, শিশুপাঠ্য হিসেবে পড়েছি অর্থাৎ চারটি অভিযানের প্রথম দুটি। কয়েকদিন আগে ভারি ভারি বই থেকে হালকা কিছু পড়তে গুডরিডসের স্যাটায়ার জঁরায় ঢুঁ দিলাম। দেখি, গালিভার্স ট্রাভেলস। আষাঢ়ে গল্প বলা যায়, কিন্তু স্যাটায়ার! তো ভাবলাম, এমনিও পুরোটা পড়িনি, শুরু করা যাক!
ফিকশনের রিভিউয়ের বড় সমস্যা হচ্ছে স্পয়লার দেওয়ার সম্ভাবনা। কোনো কাহিনী না বলেও এটুকু বলা যায় বইয়ের তৃতীয় যাত্রাটি আমার সবচেয়ে পছন্দের। প্লেটোর ফিলোসফার কিং ও তার রাজ্যের একটা ভালো ক্যারিকেচার পাওয়া যায়।
তা বাদে সারা বইতে রাজনীতি, অর্থনীতি, ধর্ম ও বিচারব্যবস্থা এবং মোটের ওপর মানুষের বহুবিধ হিপোক্রেসী নিয়ে বেশ ভালোরকমের স্যাটায়ার আছে।
Gulliver's Travels is a masterful piece of satire and one of the masterful works of Western literature. Despite this, it seems that it is being lost to tides of ennui and a culture determined to undermine and belittle this masterpiece.
Going into reading this book, one would expect something of a children's story. That is how it has been presented for at least a century now, with the focus on Gulliver's adventure in Lilliput where he encounters a civilization in miniature. Aside from committing the absurd mistake of treating the Gulliver's Travels as if it were called Gulliver's Travel, this view ignores any sort of social commentary on human society, both in general and in Swift's time. It is also incomplete without his other travels where he visits the gargantuan Brobdignagians, the scientific minded Laputans, the necromatic Glubbdubdrib magician, the unfortunate immortals of Luggnagg, and the horse beings known as …
Gulliver's Travels is a masterful piece of satire and one of the masterful works of Western literature. Despite this, it seems that it is being lost to tides of ennui and a culture determined to undermine and belittle this masterpiece.
Going into reading this book, one would expect something of a children's story. That is how it has been presented for at least a century now, with the focus on Gulliver's adventure in Lilliput where he encounters a civilization in miniature. Aside from committing the absurd mistake of treating the Gulliver's Travels as if it were called Gulliver's Travel, this view ignores any sort of social commentary on human society, both in general and in Swift's time. It is also incomplete without his other travels where he visits the gargantuan Brobdignagians, the scientific minded Laputans, the necromatic Glubbdubdrib magician, the unfortunate immortals of Luggnagg, and the horse beings known as Houyhnhnms. To focus only on the Lilliputans is a disservice to the novel and to whomever you are introducing Gulliver's Travels to. Each journey is a new perspective on humanity, form being insignificant, to being grand, to being scientific, to being dumb savages. All these viewpoints with their advantages and disadvantages make an excellent whole that is lost if only a part is viewed, and that part is considered childish literature.
Ultimately, one needs to be ready to read Gulliver's Travels. If one is not in the right mindset, the purpose would be lost, the humour ignored, and it would become a chore to read. Which would be a tragedy, since it is definitively deserving of the term Classic.
