He hoped, when we returned to England I would oblige the world by putting it in paper, and making it public. My answer was, that I thought we were already overstocked with books of traveler: that nothing could now pass which was not extraordinary, wherein I doubted some authors less consulted truth than their own vanity or interest, or the diversion of ignorant readers. That my story could contain little besides common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals, or of the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound. However I thanked him for his good opinion and promised to take the matter into my thoughts.While there certainly are many, many satirists of note in this world, I have as yet not encountered any with as much wit and insight as Swift. Not only does he cut apart his contemporaries and their times with the most innocent of tones, but he further places the whole of the human race on the dissecting table and does not cease until our exalted vision of ourselves lies in tiny little pieces, only worth so much dog meat. While this may sound a bit harsh to you, I assure you, I'm not conveying the half of the criticism Swift levees on the human race so breezily in his Gulliver's Travels. But I also wonder if Swift didn't trap himself, perhaps like Mark Twain, into a narrow world of only being known as a satirist. I have seen many different works of Swift and they all have this same innocence which belies a deeper, darker and more knowing fury attacking the stupidity of humanity. While he is a wonderful writer in this vein and perhaps in others, and no doubt is brilliant, after Gulliver I felt I needed a goodly break before I returned to his sort of style.
I would be tempted to describe satire as a sort of addiction, a drug which draws you in and while you quickly become disgusted with it, you simply cannot stop. But beyond these sorts of morbid views of satire and whatnot, Gulliver's actual story is quite interesting. Swift never wastes times putting Gulliver alone in a strange and artfully constructed world. Usually it only takes him a few pages to go from peaceful family life to shipwrecked in a world of giants. The various peoples and cultures he meets with along his wanderings are all unique and interesting in their own right, besides their satirical value. If anything would be helpful though before you start to read this one, get a brief history of the political situation in which Swift was writing. I have a feeling this would make the entire story much more meaningful. 8/10
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