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haramis 's review for:
Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
I tried reading this about 12 years ago, but I didn't make it much past Lilliput, which is too bad because the best applicable satire to our current government starts showing up in Brobdingnag.
Check out this gem: "But, if what I told him were true, he was still at a loss how a kingdom could run out of its estate, like a private person." He asked me, "who were our creditors; and where we found money to pay them?" He wondered to hear me talk of such changeable and expensive wars; "that certainly we must be a quarrelsome people, or live among very bad neighbors, and that our generals must needs be richer than our kings."
Wow, ouch, or:
You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator. That laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.
Ice burn, Jonathan Swift.
Unfortunately, Parts III and IV are pretty dated, and by dated, I mean uncomfortably racist and sexist. Also while I get why a book written nearly three hundred years ago might be a little behind on its science, there were several statements made that I found myself just shaking my head at because the author's truths have been proven deeply incorrect. Also, I have to admit that sometimes in Part IV, I imagined some of the sentiments being espoused by Mr. Collins, due to the generally pompous tone and grand obsequiousness to his patron, excuse me, master.
So I guess my overall assessment would be 3.5/5 stars, with the deductions being for the ways in which the book has aged poorly.
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I didn't really mean to read this. Audible/Amazon offered some 20 classics for free as a test run for Whispersync, and I grabbed most of them (Screw you, Edith Wharton). For what it's worth, Whispersync is in fact pretty cool allowing you to seamlessly swap between the audio and Kindle editions of a book if you happen to have both, which I frequently do. Anyway, I was just listening to a bit of it, and then kept listening...
Check out this gem: "But, if what I told him were true, he was still at a loss how a kingdom could run out of its estate, like a private person." He asked me, "who were our creditors; and where we found money to pay them?" He wondered to hear me talk of such changeable and expensive wars; "that certainly we must be a quarrelsome people, or live among very bad neighbors, and that our generals must needs be richer than our kings."
Wow, ouch, or:
You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator. That laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.
Ice burn, Jonathan Swift.
Unfortunately, Parts III and IV are pretty dated, and by dated, I mean uncomfortably racist and sexist. Also while I get why a book written nearly three hundred years ago might be a little behind on its science, there were several statements made that I found myself just shaking my head at because the author's truths have been proven deeply incorrect. Also, I have to admit that sometimes in Part IV, I imagined some of the sentiments being espoused by Mr. Collins, due to the generally pompous tone and grand obsequiousness to his patron, excuse me, master.
So I guess my overall assessment would be 3.5/5 stars, with the deductions being for the ways in which the book has aged poorly.
----
I didn't really mean to read this. Audible/Amazon offered some 20 classics for free as a test run for Whispersync, and I grabbed most of them (Screw you, Edith Wharton). For what it's worth, Whispersync is in fact pretty cool allowing you to seamlessly swap between the audio and Kindle editions of a book if you happen to have both, which I frequently do. Anyway, I was just listening to a bit of it, and then kept listening...