I started the last voyage last night; I confess since Melissa has been traveling I haven't been as diligent a reader as normal. Hope to finish this weekend.
This is one of those books, had I read it in school, that I'm sure would have required multiple essays and term papers regarding the various political systems and aspects described. However, since I'm reading it now I'm choosing to read only for pleasure, and I love it.
I do have to say that his wife is a damn sight more patient and devoted that I am - being left alone for years and years at a time, welcoming him back, bearing more children and crying when he left a few months after returning.
Until I finish, here are the parts that I found especially amusing:
Part 1, Chapter 2, RE pooing: "From this time my constant practice was, as soon as I rose, to perform that business in open air, at the full extent of my chain, and due care was taken every morning before company came, that the offensive mater should be carried off in wheelbarrows, by two servants appointed for that purpose." Imagine how that would look on a Lilliputian resume: Man-Mountain's Poo Remover.
Chapter 3, RE the parade: "His Majesty gave orders, upon the pain of death, that ever soldier in his march should observe the strictest decency with regard to my person; which, however, could not prevent some of the younger officers from turning up their eyes as they passed under me. And, to confess the truth, my breeches were at that time in so ill a condition, that they afforded some opportunities for laughter and admiration.”
Chapter 6, RE Snilpall: “And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties without any mention of reward.” A very good point, I think, that is still very valid today.
Part 2, Chapter 5: “The would often strip me naked from top to bottom, and lay me at full length in their bosoms; wherewith I was much disgusted..” cont.. “The handsomest girl among these Maids of Honour, a pleasant frolicsome girl of sixteen, would sometimes set me astride upon one of her nipples, with many other tricks, wherein the reader will excuse me for not being over particular.” Why, Jonathan Swift! This is getting to be a bit soft-core here…
Part 3, Chapter 2: “But he may please consider, that the caprices of womankind are not limited by any climate or nation, and that they are much more uniform than can be easily imagined.” Human nature is universal, me thinks, not just woman nature.
Chapter 5, the entire passage about the projector with the bellows and the dog I found VERY amusing.
Chapter 6: “.. the professors appearing in my judgment wholly out of their senses… These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult with the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, eminent services; of instructing princes to know their true interest by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employments persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimaeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive..”
I am really struggling through the last voyage. I think he could have wrapped it up on the first 3 or 4 chapters of this one, but it just keeps going on and on and on..
I've completed Voyage 1 and have a few comments before moving on to the next voyage.
First, this is not at all what I expected. I was thinking this would be more like "Swiss Family Robinson". I like it, but I haven't found it so good that I can't put it down. I'm still going to try to finish it up by the end of this weekend.
Secondly, as a result of Robber Bride, every time I read a Lillipution name or word, I try it backward to see what it really means. This has gotten me absolutely nowhere and yet I can't seem to stop doing it.
I agree with Angie's picks for favorite sections and have a few to add:
Part I, Chapter IV: The whole discussion of the importance of low Heels and high Heels and the subsequent discussion of the war based on which end of the egg to break. I have to say that every time I've cracked an egg since this chapter, I've paid special attention to which end.
Part I, Chapter V: Who can NOT love the fact he put out the palace fire by urinating on it? Brilliant. "... that the Epress conceiving the greatest Abhorrence of what I had done, removed to the most distant Side of the Court, firmly resolved that those Buildings should never be repaired for her Use." Because, who would want to live in pissy apartments?
And finally, Part I, Chapter VI: about the education of the children- "...neither did I perceive any Difference in their Education, made by their Difference of Sex, only that the Exercises of the Females were not altogether so robust, and that some Rules were given them relating to domestick Life, and a smaller compass of Learning was enjoyned them: for, their Maxim is, that among People of Quality, a Wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young." So, in short, they were educated the same EXCEPT that the girls didn't excercise as much, didn't learn as much, and were taught how to be good, obedient wives. Uh-huh. Sounds different to me.
I've just read your comments on Travel One and have exactly the same comments on the same quotes. I especially liked the poop-carter. And I liked how Gulliver rounded up all the "enemy's" boats and brought them home. Can you imagine?
And yes, I'm sure in high school this would have been RIFT with required essays. I'm so glad I'm reading it now and NEVER in my wildest dreams thought I would could EVER be a Literature MAJOR! ICK!!! There goes the reading for enjoying.
Really? Ken and I decided that I missed my calling. I should have been a literature major and then I could get paid to read novels. Rather than "wasting" my time reading them. :-)
quotes cont.. Part 4, Chapter 5: "First, my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would advocate for justice, which as an office unnatural, he always attempts with ill will." I had always thought that society's contempt for lawyers was a rather recent development, but I stand corrected!
Chapter 6, re noblemen: "..as soon as years will permit they consume their vigor and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution, merely for the sake of money, whom they hate and dispise. That the productions of such marriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which the family seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed.
Chapter 8, re Yahoos: "It is observed that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet the much exceed in strength and activity." I think I am in love with the word "libidinous."
I enjoyed the first two parts more than the last two. The third was ok, but I didn't care for the fourth. There wasn't much adventure, just a lot of standing around and neighing back and forth. The bit where he went swimming and got molested by the female yahoo was amusing. Also it kind of bothered me that he wanted to stay living there, and never once mentioned missing his family, or wanting to see his new baby (he left his wife "big with child"). Also, the way he treated his family and others when he got back was a little odd. I wonder if he went a little crazy from living with the horses.
As M knows, I am always wanting a book to describe day to day things, like bathrooms and kitchens, and I really, really enjoyed all the bathroom references in this one. Joy and I were talking about how scandalous it must have been back in the day. I was very impressed by Swift's attention to those details. Indeed, where would a man mountain poo?
I wonder if Lewis Carroll took any inspiration from Gulliver?
I've finished Voyage #2. The only page I tabbed to comment on was the same page that Angie's already made comment on- the undressing of the author and setting him on their breasts.
After Voyage 1, I expected the next to be about a land of giants and was disappointed to find that I was correct. It seemed a bit predictable, I thought, after the first voyage? Anyhow, moving on...
I just finished Voyage 3. Overall I found it rather dull, but there were several parts that I noted.
Chapter V: I found the Operation to reduce human Excrement to its original Food to be rather amusing, more so than the bellows and the poor dog.
Chapter VI: I also noted the quote that Angie did, about the "crazy" ideas of the political projectors. I also like on the next page about making them remember the meetings through various types of kicking or tweaking or stomping...
Continuing in that same chapter (I actually thought this was the best chapter of this part): ".. to tax those Qualities of Body and Mind for which Men cheifly value themselves; the rat to be more or less according to the Degrees of excelling... The highest tax was upon Men, who are the greatest Favourites of the other SEx; and the ASsessments according to the Number and natures of the Favours they have received...But, as to Honour, Justice, Wisdom, and Learning, they should not be taxed at all; because, they are Qualifications of so singlular a Kind, that no Man will either allow them in his Neighbour, or value them in himself." Lovely.
And finally, "... the law thinks it a reasonable Indulgence, that those who are condemned without any fault of their own to a perpetual Coninuance in theWorld, should not have their Misery doubled by the Load of a Wife." Or, I would add, the Load of a Husband. I think I can understand this law. :-)
Okay, I agree with Angie in that I also cared little for the fourth voyage. I was actually looking forward to it, because according to the Foreward at the beginning of my volume, the fourth voyage was widely criticized and considered quite scandalous. That made it seem much more exciting than it actually was. I see why it caused such furor, being such a harsh critique of human society. But he had been working up to that in all the other voyages, so it shouldn't have come as a big surprise.
I noted two things about the fourth voyage that I wanted to comment on. 1)He swoons after being told to leave- this is reminiscent of our brain fevers. Should we count it? 2) How does he suck the wound from the arrow ON THE INSIDE OF THE KNEE? This seems very difficult to accomplish. On the front of the knee yes, but the inside?
I also agree that his behavior seems quite strange when he returns and I think I would have very little patience for him had I been his wife. Leaving your pregnant wife and children to fend for themselves for many years while you satisfy your personal itch to travel sounds more Yahoo-ish then anything he blames them for. I say, kick him out on his Yahoo ass. :-)
Okay, I have finished. I found the end of travel 3 to take me FOREVER but travel 4 moved right along (maybe reading in the afternoon vs. reading at night had something to do with it).
I have a few favorite sections (besides the ones already mentioned). Travel 2, chapter 7 "No law of that country must exceed in words the numbers of letters in their alphabet, which consists of only 2 and 20. But indeed, few of them extend even to that length". Hmmm, makes things rather direct and simple like "Thou shalt not kill", etc. I think we need a law like this about laws.
Travel 3 - Chapter 6 where you take people of equal sized heads, cut them in half and replace each with the other's half - to help move arguments along.
And of course, Travel 4, Chapter 6 "Wine... is a sort of liquid which makes us merry, by putting us out of our senses, .... we fall into a profound sleep and wake up sick and dispirited". Ah, the truth of it all.
I did like Travel 3 with the magnet to control the Up and down of the island. Kind of sci fi there.
Oh, and I was MOST disappointed in how he treated his family when he returned.
Overall glad I read this just to say that I have. Definitely would've hated this book in high school though.
13 comments:
I started the last voyage last night; I confess since Melissa has been traveling I haven't been as diligent a reader as normal. Hope to finish this weekend.
This is one of those books, had I read it in school, that I'm sure would have required multiple essays and term papers regarding the various political systems and aspects described. However, since I'm reading it now I'm choosing to read only for pleasure, and I love it.
I do have to say that his wife is a damn sight more patient and devoted that I am - being left alone for years and years at a time, welcoming him back, bearing more children and crying when he left a few months after returning.
Until I finish, here are the parts that I found especially amusing:
Part 1, Chapter 2, RE pooing:
"From this time my constant practice was, as soon as I rose, to perform that business in open air, at the full extent of my chain, and due care was taken every morning before company came, that the offensive mater should be carried off in wheelbarrows, by two servants appointed for that purpose."
Imagine how that would look on a Lilliputian resume: Man-Mountain's Poo Remover.
Chapter 3, RE the parade:
"His Majesty gave orders, upon the pain of death, that ever soldier in his march should observe the strictest decency with regard to my person; which, however, could not prevent some of the younger officers from turning up their eyes as they passed under me. And, to confess the truth, my breeches were at that time in so ill a condition, that they afforded some opportunities for laughter and admiration.”
Chapter 6, RE Snilpall:
“And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties without any mention of reward.”
A very good point, I think, that is still very valid today.
Part 2, Chapter 5:
“The would often strip me naked from top to bottom, and lay me at full length in their bosoms; wherewith I was much disgusted..”
cont..
“The handsomest girl among these Maids of Honour, a pleasant frolicsome girl of sixteen, would sometimes set me astride upon one of her nipples, with many other tricks, wherein the reader will excuse me for not being over particular.”
Why, Jonathan Swift! This is getting to be a bit soft-core here…
Part 3, Chapter 2:
“But he may please consider, that the caprices of womankind are not limited by any climate or nation, and that they are much more uniform than can be easily imagined.”
Human nature is universal, me thinks, not just woman nature.
Chapter 5, the entire passage about the projector with the bellows and the dog I found VERY amusing.
Chapter 6:
“.. the professors appearing in my judgment wholly out of their senses… These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult with the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, eminent services; of instructing princes to know their true interest by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employments persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimaeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive..”
Wow, you're way ahead of me. I am on Chapter 3. Of the first voyage. I'll try to catch up this week, but no guarantees. :-)
I am really struggling through the last voyage. I think he could have wrapped it up on the first 3 or 4 chapters of this one, but it just keeps going on and on and on..
I've completed Voyage 1 and have a few comments before moving on to the next voyage.
First, this is not at all what I expected. I was thinking this would be more like "Swiss Family Robinson". I like it, but I haven't found it so good that I can't put it down. I'm still going to try to finish it up by the end of this weekend.
Secondly, as a result of Robber Bride, every time I read a Lillipution name or word, I try it backward to see what it really means. This has gotten me absolutely nowhere and yet I can't seem to stop doing it.
I agree with Angie's picks for favorite sections and have a few to add:
Part I, Chapter IV: The whole discussion of the importance of low Heels and high Heels and the subsequent discussion of the war based on which end of the egg to break. I have to say that every time I've cracked an egg since this chapter, I've paid special attention to which end.
Part I, Chapter V: Who can NOT love the fact he put out the palace fire by urinating on it? Brilliant. "... that the Epress conceiving the greatest Abhorrence of what I had done, removed to the most distant Side of the Court, firmly resolved that those Buildings should never be repaired for her Use." Because, who would want to live in pissy apartments?
And finally, Part I, Chapter VI: about the education of the children- "...neither did I perceive any Difference in their Education, made by their Difference of Sex, only that the Exercises of the Females were not altogether so robust, and that some Rules were given them relating to domestick Life, and a smaller compass of Learning was enjoyned them: for, their Maxim is, that among People of Quality, a Wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young." So, in short, they were educated the same EXCEPT that the girls didn't excercise as much, didn't learn as much, and were taught how to be good, obedient wives. Uh-huh. Sounds different to me.
I've just read your comments on Travel One and have exactly the same comments on the same quotes. I especially liked the poop-carter.
And I liked how Gulliver rounded up all the "enemy's" boats and brought them home. Can you imagine?
And yes, I'm sure in high school this would have been RIFT with required essays. I'm so glad I'm reading it now and NEVER in my wildest dreams thought I would could EVER be a Literature MAJOR! ICK!!! There goes the reading for enjoying.
Really? Ken and I decided that I missed my calling. I should have been a literature major and then I could get paid to read novels. Rather than "wasting" my time reading them. :-)
quotes cont..
Part 4, Chapter 5:
"First, my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would advocate for justice, which as an office unnatural, he always attempts with ill will."
I had always thought that society's contempt for lawyers was a rather recent development, but I stand corrected!
Chapter 6, re noblemen:
"..as soon as years will permit they consume their vigor and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution, merely for the sake of money, whom they hate and dispise. That the productions of such marriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which the family seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed.
Chapter 8, re Yahoos:
"It is observed that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet the much exceed in strength and activity."
I think I am in love with the word "libidinous."
I enjoyed the first two parts more than the last two. The third was ok, but I didn't care for the fourth. There wasn't much adventure, just a lot of standing around and neighing back and forth. The bit where he went swimming and got molested by the female yahoo was amusing. Also it kind of bothered me that he wanted to stay living there, and never once mentioned missing his family, or wanting to see his new baby (he left his wife "big with child"). Also, the way he treated his family and others when he got back was a little odd. I wonder if he went a little crazy from living with the horses.
As M knows, I am always wanting a book to describe day to day things, like bathrooms and kitchens, and I really, really enjoyed all the bathroom references in this one. Joy and I were talking about how scandalous it must have been back in the day. I was very impressed by Swift's attention to those details. Indeed, where would a man mountain poo?
I wonder if Lewis Carroll took any inspiration from Gulliver?
I've finished Voyage #2. The only page I tabbed to comment on was the same page that Angie's already made comment on- the undressing of the author and setting him on their breasts.
After Voyage 1, I expected the next to be about a land of giants and was disappointed to find that I was correct. It seemed a bit predictable, I thought, after the first voyage? Anyhow, moving on...
I just finished Voyage 3. Overall I found it rather dull, but there were several parts that I noted.
Chapter V: I found the Operation to reduce human Excrement to its original Food to be rather amusing, more so than the bellows and the poor dog.
Chapter VI: I also noted the quote that Angie did, about the "crazy" ideas of the political projectors. I also like on the next page about making them remember the meetings through various types of kicking or tweaking or stomping...
Continuing in that same chapter (I actually thought this was the best chapter of this part): ".. to tax those Qualities of Body and Mind for which Men cheifly value themselves; the rat to be more or less according to the Degrees of excelling... The highest tax was upon Men, who are the greatest Favourites of the other SEx; and the ASsessments according to the Number and natures of the Favours they have received...But, as to Honour, Justice, Wisdom, and Learning, they should not be taxed at all; because, they are Qualifications of so singlular a Kind, that no Man will either allow them in his Neighbour, or value them in himself." Lovely.
And finally, "... the law thinks it a reasonable Indulgence, that those who are condemned without any fault of their own to a perpetual Coninuance in theWorld, should not have their Misery doubled by the Load of a Wife." Or, I would add, the Load of a Husband. I think I can understand this law. :-)
Okay, I agree with Angie in that I also cared little for the fourth voyage. I was actually looking forward to it, because according to the Foreward at the beginning of my volume, the fourth voyage was widely criticized and considered quite scandalous. That made it seem much more exciting than it actually was. I see why it caused such furor, being such a harsh critique of human society. But he had been working up to that in all the other voyages, so it shouldn't have come as a big surprise.
I noted two things about the fourth voyage that I wanted to comment on. 1)He swoons after being told to leave- this is reminiscent of our brain fevers. Should we count it?
2) How does he suck the wound from the arrow ON THE INSIDE OF THE KNEE? This seems very difficult to accomplish. On the front of the knee yes, but the inside?
I also agree that his behavior seems quite strange when he returns and I think I would have very little patience for him had I been his wife. Leaving your pregnant wife and children to fend for themselves for many years while you satisfy your personal itch to travel sounds more Yahoo-ish then anything he blames them for. I say, kick him out on his Yahoo ass. :-)
AMEN Melissa! I would have kicked him out too.
I'm not sure if his swooning would count as a brain fever, unless it knocked him out for 3 or 4 days. I've returned my copy already so can't check =(
I'm ready to move on as soon as JOy is done.
Okay, I have finished. I found the end of travel 3 to take me FOREVER but travel 4 moved right along (maybe reading in the afternoon vs. reading at night had something to do with it).
I have a few favorite sections (besides the ones already mentioned). Travel 2, chapter 7 "No law of that country must exceed in words the numbers of letters in their alphabet, which consists of only 2 and 20. But indeed, few of them extend even to that length". Hmmm, makes things rather direct and simple like "Thou shalt not kill", etc. I think we need a law like this about laws.
Travel 3 - Chapter 6 where you take people of equal sized heads, cut them in half and replace each with the other's half - to help move arguments along.
And of course, Travel 4, Chapter 6 "Wine... is a sort of liquid which makes us merry, by putting us out of our senses, .... we fall into a profound sleep and wake up sick and dispirited". Ah, the truth of it all.
I did like Travel 3 with the magnet to control the Up and down of the island. Kind of sci fi there.
Oh, and I was MOST disappointed in how he treated his family when he returned.
Overall glad I read this just to say that I have. Definitely would've hated this book in high school though.
Oh and the inside of the knee would be the "inside" between your legs, so I think he could have sucked the poison out.
Post a Comment