Gulliver's Travels, Part 2

After the well-known voyage to Lilliput, Lemuel Gulliver is content to stay home with his family for only 2 months before he set out again.  Just as the narrative started, I found myself thinking, "I need to search for sailing lingo just to follow this".  Then one of the few, but pertinent, footnotes in my edition pointed out that a section is taken from a Mariner's Magazine published around that time.  It is purported to be almost verbatim.  Funny that nowadays we call it plagiarism and back then it was to enhance the technical feel of the book.

Gulliver is then stranded in a new land where, as luck would have it, everyone and everything is 12 times bigger than he is in complete inverse proportion of him to the Lilliputians.  The interesting thing is how the perspective and observations change from one extreme to the other.  Not just the comical descriptions of the land and people (although the horror Gulliver expresses at seeing the wet nurse expose the tools of her trade when suckling a child is truly hilarious) but the whole manner of observing as from the outside in (Lilliput) to inside out (Brobdingnag).  Here is where the true satirical luster of Swift's writing shines.   The sheer audacity of the facetious writing is amazing.

There are some dry political/governmental descriptions that I had to gloss over (not being my field of interest, I didn't want to drool on the pages with boredom) but the depiction of the English/European people given by the king at the end of chapter 6 is definitely worth a read and the beginning of it is given at the end of this post. I think you will find it as true and pertinent now as it was then.

My favorite thing to note is Gulliver's ego unchanged throughout either of his adventures.  He is adamant that anybody who agrees with him is clever and intelligent but those who disagree are ignorant and wrong-headed.

Have I convinced you to get your own copy, yet?  I'll be working part 3 next, join me on my journey through the classics.  If you're not keen on Gulliver, consider Darwin for our next adventure.  Or, suggest something different, let me know!

This is the king holding Gulliver in his hand to deliver his opinion of the European people:

"My little friend Grildrig [Gulliver's name in that country], you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country.  You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator.  That laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.  I observe among you some lines of an institution, which is its original might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions."

Working my way through the Classics

     While I am an avid reader and have some literature training in my background, I am not what I would consider well-read in the classics.  Pretty  much anything written before the 1900's is out of my realm of experience.

I am determined to change that!

     About a year ago I read a wonderful book entitled How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler.  If you haven't heard of it, this isn't a typical high-school level book on how to read for meaning or learning how to "read between the lines".  It is an eloquent monologue on the importance of reading for understanding, how to read different types of books (from Pythagoras to Aquinas to Swift) and how to incorporate all of that information into a usable base of knowledge from which to approach any thought-provoking problem.

     Having read How to Read a Book, I cannot escape the notion of reading all the "Great Books".  Why are they called that?  Because Adler coined the term and then edited the first edition of a series of broad-ranging texts from the earliest manuscripts until the middle of the 20th century.

     Michael Owen.  He is the other reason my curiosity was peaked and my determination solidified.  Mike is both a friend and a colleague at PIU.  He not only went through a Great Books program in college but he used the wisdom he gained from that to marry his wife, my friend Samantha (see, education is useful in real life if you use it right).  We have had some fascinating discussions and he has brought some really interesting insights to bear that have been directly influenced from the reading, discussion, and learning he'd gleaned from going through these timeless works.

     So, now I have the tools and the determination so I've had to decide where to start.  Yikes!  There's so much to choose from, how do I decide?  Well, I went through my bookcase at home (o.k. one of about a million bookcases we have, what can I say?) and found quite a few classics that we have been given or collected through the years.  So, I picked one I am familiar with but not published too far in the past to be incomprehensible (I hope). I also chose a satirical book being an avid fan of that type of humor. What did I choose?

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

     So, being steeped in colloquial and idiomatic American English, I thought this would be a refreshing start into my journey through the classics.  The language is familiar enough that I don't feel I have to decipher it to get the meaning and the plot style is still very similar to books published today.  Also, I am a fan of historical romance novels (you may gag but it won't change my opinion) so some of the English history of that time is familiar (romance writers really do their research despite what you may think). 

     The first thing I noticed, is that there is no dialogue written.  It is all recalled from the narrator's experience and he does not give voice to individual conversations choosing, instead, to filter all things through his own recollection--we are left to decide how accurate each of these recollections may be.  With some modern books being more dialogue than description, this is an interesting change.

     Now as to the story, I am 1/3 of the way through the travels and Gulliver has just left the island of Lilliput.  I have seen one or two film adaptations of this story (although not the most recent Jack Black version) and this is the most often depicted part of the story.  I am pleased to say that I have enjoyed the story much more than the movie versions because the medium of video has to rely on visual experiential scenes to tell the story (this is not to say that film doesn't have impact or is inferior, I am just stating that they are different mediums and it can be difficult to transfer from one to the other).  The text is much more cerebral and the irony of reading about the absurdities of court life as seen from an outsiders point of view is very funny but also poignant because the charades and dramas are what were real life for many people.

     Now, I don't want to spoil the story or give away plot points but I do want to encourage those of you who haven't attempted to explore the classics to give them a try.  I'll chronicle some of my observations of Gulliver's Travels while I read through it, and maybe you can read it at the same time and see if you agree or disagree with what I say.  After Gulliver, I'm not sure where I'll venture.  Maybe Darwin because, believe it or not even after a Bachelor's degree in Biology, I still haven't read On the Origin of Species which I believe as an instructor is a sad lack in my earlier education.  What do you think?  Comment with suggestions for my next classic or email me.

The Land of Stories

Ever feel this way?

Sometimes I wonder if there is anything worse than a bad book; one that doesn't have a happy ending (those are synonymous in my book).  The other day I decided "Yes".  And it's suffering through an "eh" book.

I was excited to get a new book called The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer.  The summary sounded like a lot of fun:  What would it be like if all the fairy tale lands were connected and went on living after "happily ever after"?  And even through the entire book, I kept saying that the premise of the book was great.  Unfortunately, the writing never made it up to the promise of the storyline.  As a reader, I was upset to be told how to feel, what to think, and what moral I should get from the story.

Not satisfying.  Not satisfying at all.

A good book presents the story, setting, plot and characters and lets you feel, think, and judge based on what you experience through the tale.  This has all the early elements of a great story but seems like the rough draft of an amateur.  So, I wonder, how did this get published?  Well, there were no advertising quotes on the book of publishers, reviewers, or other authors endorsing the author or the story.  That might say something.  And the rest I found on the back cover with the picture and author's bio.  He is a star from the show Glee. 

I sure wish that publishers and editors would stick to their own standards and would help the author succeed in finishing a great book instead of pushing through an incomplete project due to unrelated fame.  Instead, I inflicted the blandness of the book in its entirety upon myself because it's just too hard to put a book down and walk away.  Sigh, maybe the next book I read will be better.

Dipping a toe in the whirlpool of philosophy

At the school several of us have begun a book swapping circle, passing books of all genres. The most recent that has made the rounds between four of us is I Told Me So:  Self-Deception and the Christian Life by Gregg A. Ten Elshof.  Before even reading the book, I was fascinated by the "one degree of separation" as Mike Owen (PIU's Teacher of the Year and all around good-guy) had Mr. Ten Elshof as a professor at Talbot seminary.  First hand accounts of the teacher makes the subject of the book even more powerful.

Now, for those who are leery of the subject of philosophy this book offers a great introduction to the genre without overwhelming with existential round-robin discussion.  Beyond the philosophical framework, though, the content of I Told Me So is wonderful!  As we mature in our Christian lives, we are exhorted to be "imitators" of Christ.  We should always be actively moving toward a lifestyle that reflects our beliefs in the power and sanctity of Christ and his relationship to the Father.  The difficulty is that, even though we desire to be moving in this direction, we are still hampered by the effects of sin in our lives.  And the devil is a crafty one, he can manipulate circumstances to influence our perspective if we don't take notice. 

This book suggests ways that this is done, both with the devil's help and by our own sinful nature.  Ten Elshof makes a case that self-deception is part of our created make-up that can be used for positive things.  It's when this self-deception becomes out of hand and self-serving that it becomes a weakness to be addressed.  While it sounds simple, diagnose the symptom and treat the problem, it becomes much more complex when you can't or won't see your own trap of self-deception or when a trusted group of people participate in the attitude with you.

Whew, wait a minute... that sounds awful and like we are all in a conspiracy to fool ourselves and each other into doing and thinking what we want, when we want.  Well, yes, that's what sinful nature is: self-deception is just another face of that sinful nature that we can identify and address with God's help.  Awareness is the first step.

The last thing that I really like about this book is not that it just presents the "problem" and leaves us to drown in conviction, Ten Elshof also hands us the life saver in the form of suggested ways to identify and combat the tendency toward self-deception.  And, even better, he offers up warnings of what can happen if we over-identify and over-correct in reaction to the problem.  This is a tidy package of presentation, exhortation, and caution in a book that is easy to read and (for those with a busy life) short.

To recap:  This is a very insightful book that will either open your eyes to a particular aspect of your sinful nature you were unaware of or reinforce the knowledge that you already have of it and offer tools to address it.  Irrespective of content this is also a great introduction into the subject of philosophy that will give you a feel for the type of thinking involved without pulling you down to the depths.

If you have read it, please leave comments.  If not, consider it for yourself or even a discussion group.

And, if you have any suggestions of books for me to read and review, please email me at: lightheartedlibrarianlisa@gmail.com.