Gulliver's Travels

I just could not get into this book and I think it was partly due to the unrelenting racism (background institutional racism at best and plainspoken in your face racism at worst) and sexism. If you can get past that it is an effective satire that allows an in depth look at English culture & thought in the early 18th century.

The well know Lilliputians only make up a quarter of the travels that Gulliver recounts. After his sojourn amidst those small people he in turn is dwarfed by the giants of Brobdingnag. Afterwards, in Laputa he sees the dangers of a society where the adherence to promises of science & engineering even amidst their failure in reality created a society of hunger and homelessness. Finally, the county of the Houyhnhnms shows the perfection of a society of rational horses (and the most egregious racism outside the brief visit to Japan).

I will say that Swift did include some dialogue (pseudo-dialogue would be more accurate but since it was written in 1725 I'll give it to him) which is amazing for it's time since so many novels written a century and a half later are straight narrative.

This was part of my foundations of science fiction and fantasy reading kick. I can definitely see how this work informed the genre- the travelogue styled narrative, the floating city, the dystopian society caused by unchecked science, and anthropomorphic animals. But just because you're one of the first works doesn't mean you are the best. Overall, it's a racist satire of Western culture that promotes a return to a simple and naturalistic life. If you're thinking of picking this up to increase your cultural literacy I'd just stick to one of the movie adaptations- you only need to know about the Lilliputians in general conversation.