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fleurette 's review for:
Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
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.
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.