As a social commentary book, commenting on the society of Europe during the early 1700s, it is a fascinating book. But beware, the part where he is big and the little people tie him up - yeah, that is very early on in the book. He meets other types of peoples, some bigger than him (directly opposite the Lilliputian experience), others floating on clouds who only care about math and music, and then an island where the horses and people have changed roles. Which all sounds good, but the social commentary can be a bit long winded and sometimes hard to struggle through.
adventurous funny reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot

“I winked at my own littleness, as people do at their own faults.”

“Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.”

Quite a fun read, somewhat reminiscent (but critical of) Robinson Crusoe. It did become somewhat tedious at some point: yes, I get it: Gulliver will find another civilisation of weird humans or creatures that defamiliarises the reader and helps highlight certain aspects of Western humanity. Overall, though, it’s a great Enlightenment read, you find many discourses reflected in this which makes it very interesting as well.

This book turned out to be completely different than I expected. And I'm not sure that's good.

Gulliver's Travels are considered a classic adventure novel and are among novels for children and teenagers. And that's what I expected. And here it turned out that this is more a moralizing critique and an essay on the state of government. Fairy-tale elements help Swift only to, at times very venomously, comment on human characters, British politics etc. I don't know how these issues would be of interest to the child. This is clearly an adult book. I also understand now why it is sometimes considered a utopian novel.

This book was interesting and boring for me at the same time. I expected an adventure in the style of Robinson Crusoe, which this book is completely not. Some of the things created by Swift are interesting to me, but the long passages about bad governance and human meanness were boring to me at times. And I have a degree in political science and I'm generally interested in such things.

What surprised me was the blatant satire of British politics that spares no one. I am more used to the books written in previous centuries that are usually more moderate in such views. And here the criticism is really harsh. Thinking about it now, it seems to me that this book was sometimes placed on the list of banned books. Now I fully understand why. In addition to radical criticism of government, there is also a bit of obscenity. Nothing huge but probably more than in other books from that era.

I also thought it would be one story and these are basically four separate stories put together. Of course, there are obvious similarities between them, especially between the first two. It also seems to me that the author's comments are becoming more and more vicious with each story.

I am glad that I read this book even if it turned out to be completely different than I expected.
adventurous reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No

**Read for ENG-302**

I have to say, this novel is hard to rate. The entire concept of the novel was revolutionary for the time and therefore it is deservedly an acclaimed classic. With that said, Gulliver's Travels is so boring to the point where it took me many breaks to get through 5 pages. The writing is so precise and mechanical, describing things with such detail that I was afraid I'd fall asleep mid-reading with my pupils dilating as my eyes, which above them there lies skin that possess eyelashes, which below the eyelashes under the skin lies brown irises which would forcibly stare at the white, aged pages with words that are combined through using combinations of the letters in the alphabet a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k...

Okay, if you liked the detail in that last sentence, this book is for you.
Thankfully, I got through what I had to read and have no desire to pick this up ever again.

English degrees are painful. I personally didn’t see the need for a story 4 times over despite their differences.

Gulliver gets restless. Gulliver stumbles upon weird world. Gulliver is taken in by some kind of royalty. Gulliver somehow learns their language. Gulliver, after staying at least a few years, has to leave because of some miscommunication.

It was just a bit boring after a while. The fourth book did creep me out though.

3 Stars just because it's a classic, it's not even worth 1 star.

Finally finished this horrible book, it put me in a reading slump for so long. It made me wonder though, shall all the classics be read? Is it really important?

Certainly an interesting satire, but it drags at points--especially for the entire fourth book. The narrator's descriptions & retellings are often exhausting to read, though he constantly implores his reader to forgive him his recounting. The casual sexism is to be expected but is annoying to read nonetheless. I don't know why people try to claim this is a children's novel--there's not enough actual adventure in the tales to interest them, and there's too much politics for them to understand.