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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
Still an amusing diversion which turns harsh, even vicious, as Gulliver moves to the land of the Houyhnhnms and finds his Yahoo civilization vulgar and shameful. The long tirade of our social ills and government corruptions smells fresh, even 300 years later.
The other antics in the various lands are appropriately fantastic, from fighting off giant rats and being nearly drowned in a bowl of cream to the bizarre island of sorcerors (where Gulliver talks to various shades of the dead through history). Lilliput, famous from film versions and in children's tales is, sadly, too brief in the original text, though I had forgotten about how our good protagonist extinguishes the fire in the queen's palace!
The other antics in the various lands are appropriately fantastic, from fighting off giant rats and being nearly drowned in a bowl of cream to the bizarre island of sorcerors (where Gulliver talks to various shades of the dead through history). Lilliput, famous from film versions and in children's tales is, sadly, too brief in the original text, though I had forgotten about how our good protagonist extinguishes the fire in the queen's palace!
adventurous
slow-paced
Me dejo tan buena sensación cuando lo leí, que creo que lo voy a releer.
Gli dissi che nel nostro paese c'erano delle persone istruite fin da giovani nell'arte di dimostrare, con la moltiplicazione delle parole inutili, che il bianco è nero o il nero è bianco, a seconda del desiderio di chi li paga: tutti gli altri sono al loro cospetto degli schiavi.
Pensavo di leggere il libro di un avventuriero alla scoperta di nuove terre.
Invece l'unica scoperta pare essere stata quella della riprovevole natura umana corrotta da passioni, vizi e malvagità. Un essere turpe e immondo che non è degno di essere considerato ragionevole.
Sarà pure un capolavoro della letteratura ma, devo essere sincera, a me tutta questa sfiducia nell'umanità ha fatto venire il voltastomaco!
adventurous
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was... weird. Not necessarily unenjoyable completely, but definitely weird. The writing style is OLD, which I found really hard to parse. There's interesting irony in it, but I struggled to find it. and This is also way darker and more sexual than one might expect. There's a lot of ideas here, and some of them are kind of fetishy/exoticizing and some are just boring. I didn’t really enjoy this book, but I do see Swift’s points with this book. It doesn't work really as a novel. I know that literature was so different back then that I have to realize this was a satire, and it wasn’t meant to work as a “novel” because the “novel” as we know it wasn’t a thing, and that lessens my enjoyment of it.
Only had to read Part I and Part IV for my lit subject. Quite liked Gulliver's Travels. Swift certainly had a vast, wild imagination. Part IV is amusing, though the 'travel journal' style of writing does drag after a while...Part I is a great satire of beauracracy too. I'm sure politicians probably do do somersaults and limbo to get into the senate.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I started reading this book because It was the lunch period and I was bored. This being an iBook, it was the only accessible book to keep me busy. And I hated it. There were aspects that I liked such as the concept of the Lilliputians and the flying island and so on but the narrative was so annoying that I just couldn't care for him at all. I HATED the narrator. He was such a pompous ass. The Houyhnhnms pissed me off and so did the constant use of the word, 'Master'. I often found myself bored and calculating how many pages out of 846 were left which is never a good sign. The writing was so bland. And let me just say that my opinion of the king in the second part increased with his refusal of such a "great" opportunity. Although we were told these kings and queens were great I never really cared or had any respect for them. They just annoyed me for the most part. And that ending. The freaking narrator abandons his family his whole life and then continues to think he is superior to everyone else and that the whole of human kind is a worthless pice of shit that doesn't deserve to exist. He can't even stand to see his family. He doesn't even want to see them in the same room.
Some further thoughts:
- Interesting view on politics.
- some funny parts.
- how many languages does he speak? It can't be easy for a man or woman of that age to learn to learn so many languages so easily.
- just listen to your wife and stop going on the sea
- Glubbdubdrib was interesting. A necromancer prince. Spirits of Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar and Pompey, Brutus to converse with.
- What would you do if you were born immortal? Immortality portrayed very unpleasantly.
- “This is enough to say upon the subject of my diet, wherewith other travellers fill their books, as if the readers were personally concerned whether we fare well or ill.”(76%)
Nice line but that didn't stop you from giving boring directions and talking about sails.
Some further thoughts:
- Interesting view on politics.
- some funny parts.
- how many languages does he speak? It can't be easy for a man or woman of that age to learn to learn so many languages so easily.
- just listen to your wife and stop going on the sea
- Glubbdubdrib was interesting. A necromancer prince. Spirits of Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar and Pompey, Brutus to converse with.
- What would you do if you were born immortal? Immortality portrayed very unpleasantly.
- “This is enough to say upon the subject of my diet, wherewith other travellers fill their books, as if the readers were personally concerned whether we fare well or ill.”(76%)
Nice line but that didn't stop you from giving boring directions and talking about sails.
☆dnf☆
I never liked it as a kid and rereading this only made this feeling stronger
I never liked it as a kid and rereading this only made this feeling stronger