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Monday Review: Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

1.  Title, Author, and Cover

Gulliver’s Travels

By Jonathan Swift

2.  Genre and Reading Level

Satire, Classic, High School and up

3.  My Summary

An English surgeon with a love for travel repeatedly falls from one adventure to another on his travels around the world.  Lemuel Gulliver certainly does not have good luck when it comes to sailing.  Constantly he is shipwrecked, marooned, and abandoned on various islands where he becomes immersed in their striking cultures.  He encounters lands of tiny people, a kingdom of giants, a floating island, and even a superior race of horses.

4.  My Opinion (With a rating)

Overall: 2 Stars

For the most part the star scores for my reviews on this blog will likely skew toward the higher numbers because, like most people, I enjoy writing about things that I like.

Unfortunately, there are also some books I don’t like.  Now don’t get me wrong, a book could be wonderfully written with a mass of fans, but, I still might not enjoy it if it does not line up with my own tastes.  Therefore, you should not discount a book just because I give it a low score.

Gulliver’s Travels is a perfect example of this.  In the past few hundred years, the book has obtained classic status, yet I have chosen to give it only two stars.

Why?

Well it all comes down to Steel, Sparkle, and Scripture.

The book has plenty of Steel.  In fact, it has too much Steel and grit and bluntness for my taste.  I prefer a more polished tone and feel.  The story is meant to be an adventure story and a satire on the trouble with mankind, but the voice is too matter-of-fact, and I could never relate to the character of Gulliver.  Even his experience with a supposedly better species does not make him more loving.  Instead he just becomes judgmental.

The Sparkle in this book is so faint and week, I hardly noticed it.

Finally the Scriptural aspect was somewhat lacking as well.  While it could be argued that the story is pointing to man’s original sin, it does not point to Jesus as the solution.  Instead, Gulliver overcame his own pathetic-ness by living in a superior society and returned home full of disgust but no compassion.

5.  Who would love this book?

Although I did not enjoy this book myself, I could recommend it to fans of satire and of gritty adventure with a dash of the outlandish.  Also, I'd like to recommend a different piece by Jonathan Swift: A Modest Proposal (although this piece also is not for the squeamish).  It is brief with a very interesting history behind it.