Gulliver's Travels - Jonathon Swift 1726 (A book more than 100 years old)

This was another book that I found on the shelves of the book exchange at work and though it was quite a long book, I decided that I would like to read it again. It was a book that I skimmed through when I was a teenager. I was a great skim reader when I was younger and now feel that I did not do justice to some of the books I 'read' back then, so this was a good opportunity to go back and reread one.

As it is a well know book I won't dwell too much on plot lines but more on what I got from rereading it.

I did wonder what mind altering substances Swift may (or may not) have been taking as the lands that Gulliver visits are so vividly described and very fanciful. Several things struck me - a lot of what Swift focused on was the difference in political systems in the different lands, each proposing a different way of living. At the time that he was writing these would have been very far fetched and radical ideas making Swift a political dissenter but as they were written as fiction it seems more amusing rather than political. I also observed that though Swift was keen on describing some extreme situations - for example a race of horses governing over men, or flying islands but he never had a country where women were in charge. Maybe that was one step too far in his mind!

There was also a sexual and bawdy element to the book, very much like Fielding. Having been introduced to historical books through reading Austen and Brontes, where manners and good breeding were considered important it showed how there was a swing of change in morals in the late Georgian and Victorian society, leading away from a more earthy sexual awareness to a repressing of anything sexual apart from true love leading to the higher good.

There is also a great deal of humour in the book - for example, pissing on the royal palace to put out a fire and the conflict between being grateful to Gulliver for saving the palace from burning down but horror at the way he had done this! Or wading through the 'deep' sea to spy on the enemy boats and bringing them back tied up together like a string of toy boats being pulled by a small child. As the book continues the humour lessens and the book becomes slightly darker.

All in all an interesting book on many levels and I'm glad I reread it.