Surreal!!. Review on Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

There are a few books in English literature that have mesmerised generations of children, their fathers and their grandfathers at the same time. Jonathan Swift’s book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ is certainly one of them. Written between 1720 and 1725 this book holds its fort even now. The book is a satire and is in my opinion a guide book on how to write satires. It is a satire on the society, government, so called intellectuals and humans in general. The only flip side is that it carries with it the cynicism and melancholy of the writer, but more of it later.

The book is divided into four parts. A Voyage to Lilliput, A Voyage to Brobdingnag, A Voyage to Laputa, Balbinarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan and A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. The first two are widely read being a standard feature of the syllabi of various schools. I’ll venture to review the four parts differently.

The first part takes Gulliver, a ship’s surgeon to an island inhabited by people only half a foot tall. It is a delightful part, the best of the whole book. I’ll not describe the adventures of Gulliver in Lilliput but only that it is a pungent satire on the mores and conspiracies hatched in the court. It is relevant even in the non-royal days of the present when we think of the perpetual insecurity and absurd decisions taken at the top echelons of power.

The second part sees Gulliver in the land of the Brobdingnags, giants more than sixty feet in height. This is a satire on the violence, avarice, lust for power and other such vices inherent in human nature. The king of Brobdingnag is told about gunpowder discovered by man and the enormous destructive power it contains and is given a proposal to be taught the secret but Gulliver is met with scorn and bitterness at such a ghastly and inhuman proposition!! Similarly the king is amazed by the fact that thousands of books have been written on the Art of Government, for him it only consists of common sense, leniency and speedy justice. No law in that country should exceed in words the number of alphabets their language contains and no one is allowed to write a commentary on the laws (Bye bye lawyers!). This is certainly a mockery of our complex codified system of law that is beyond the reach of common public.

The third part shows Gulliver in the land of Laputa, the flying island. It is a satire on our intellectuals and philosophers. This part is the funniest of all and is full of wonderful anecdotes by Gulliver. The minds of the people of Laputa are so preoccupied with speculation that they freeze and have to keep ‘flappers’ who strike them gently with their bladders on their mouth when they are to speak and on the right ear of whom the address is intended. They are only concerned with mathematics and logic. Gulliver is measured for clothes in the exact fashion. The tailor first took his altitude with a quadrant, and then described the dimensions and outlines of his body by compass and scales. Very precise indeed, it is a different matter that some mistake in the calculations caused the clothes to misfit. Similarly when they had to praise the beauty of a woman they would describe it in terms of spheres, rhomboids and other such geometric figures. There is a very humorous episode about an academy full of scientists bent upon making the world a better place. For example there is an ingenious architect who has contrived a new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working downwards to the foundation. For the sake of brevity I’ll rather not describe other such humorous episodes but suffice it to say that it is immensely readable.

The last part is a visit to the land of horses that have acquired the wisdom and taken the place of men. They keep humans as animals and call them ‘Yahoos’. This is the darkest part of the whole book and gives it a gloomy end it does not deserve. In this part Jonathan Swift has ranted and raved against all human kind and I would rather suggest leaving this part the first time you read the book.

All in all, the book is immensely readable and should be a part of the collection of every bibliophilic.