Gulliver's Travels

For a long time now I've been familiar with Gulliver's Travels. I first read a bowdlerized children's version of the satire back in fifth grade or so and I saw the Ted Danson 1996 miniseries on some random Friday in middle school. (Regretfully, I also saw the recent Jack Black movie on a plane.) You're probably at least partially familiar with this classic novel; its most iconic and recognizable scene is one of its very first, in which Gulliver awakens to find himself tied down by scores of tiny people called Lilliputians. Because of the fantastical elements of Gulliver's adventures, Swift's magnum opus has often been categorized as a fairy tale. In actuality, however, it's one of the deepest and most complex satires ever written. Unfortunately, the complicated themes are often ignored in translation - not too much depth to the Jack Black disgrace - and many of the jabs taken at eighteenth century European society are far too dated to register as specific criticisms nowadays. Subtle references to tension between the whigs and the tories, for instance, went about a hundred feet over my head. Luckily, enough of Gulliver's Travels is broad enough to serve as a timeless reflection on some of the sillier aspects of the human condition. When Gulliver walks among the Lilliputians, for example, it's easy to laugh away their petty strife and meaningless conflicts. In his next adventure, when he finds himself among giants, almost a Lilliputian himself now, it's easy to see said giants as simple and foul creatures. By the end of the book, Gulliver has visited a country ruled by intelligent horses where uncivilized human-like creatures with disgusting habits roam free in utter squalor. This is the deepest and most meaningful adventure yet for Gulliver, who becomes deeply depressed and pessimistic toward humanity in general after this episode. To this day, students of the novel argue over whether or not Gulliver's final attitude is meant to be a stand-in for Swift's, or if Swift has made Gulliver himself the final victim of his satire, a man who now believes horses to be superior creatures to human beings. I'm glad I finally read this book in its original form; I've been meaning to do so for like ten years now. I can't say it holds up today quite as well as Voltaire's Candide does, but it's a deeper and more famous novel than that contemporary example. It looks like that Ted Danson miniseries sells on Amazon for less than ten bucks, so many I'll give that a purchase and a re-watch. But not today. Not now. Not yet.