Reviews - Gulliver's Travels

1.89k reviews for:

Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift

3.29 AVERAGE

pswords72's review against another edition

2.0

So disappointed. Dry, wordy, rambled on.

danelleeb's review against another edition

1.0

I understand what the author was doing with this book. I understand when it was written how government ruled, how people lived, etc. etc. etc. Still I didn't like it. I got especially tired of reading about excrement, anus, posterior, and the like.

An island of little people, an island of big people, a floating island, an island of magicians, an island of scientists, and an island of horses who ruled and 'yahoos' who were disgusting, filthy animals.

Why didn't he just stay at home and practice medicine?

The one positive thing I can take from enduring this is that I will now understand the literary references made to it in other books.

mhrocm's review against another edition

3.5

reflective medium-paced

There’s a thing about classic novels where you can see how they were groundbreaking for the time they were written, but for the modern reader not so much. Gulliver’s Travels was written in 1726 and it is absolutely worth it (actually essential) to read a short history of Jonathan Swift’s life and the political climate he lived in, to appreciate the satire of European society that is the real story here.
Gulliver has four adventures, each time blithely impregnating his wife then disappearing for years, leaving her to survive on her own. Swift takes the opportunity to skewer particular aspects of politics, science, institutions and legal systems as Gulliver explains - to “persons of quality” at his destinations - how their systems are different from those in England.
I found the middle two adventures a slog to get through. The first (in the land of Lilliput) and last (a kind of utopian vision of a land run by gentle and wise horses, where humanoids known as yahoos are represented as savage, mindless animals completely at the mercy of their most base desires) were the most interesting.
Spoiler alert, Gulliver is so enamoured by the nobility and wisdom of his horsey friends that ultimately he has to be asked to leave, and on his return to England he is so revolted by all humans, who remind him of the vile yahoos, that he can’t stand even being around his own (long suffering) family. Ultimately he becomes a type of 18th century furry - surely this is the first appearance in literature of this particular human subgenre - extra half star for that.