Sunday, 7 June 2009

Ridiculous to me but not to Swift

The more I read, the more ridiculous the book seems. Not because it's bad, but because Gulliver speaks in a very weird way. He exaggerates the events that don't deserve exaggeration, and speaks little of events that deserve further explanations. When he speaks about the war, he speaks as if it was long and terrible, even though it's a war started because of how to crack an egg open. Meanwhile, when he speaks about his invasions to the Blefuscudian port (which solved the massive war between the two countries) he says that he just walked over there and left carrying the whole fleet of ships. Of some interesting stuff, like the Blefuscudian and Lilliputan cultures, he just says that he "Won't trouble the reader with that", assuming that the reader is not very interested in that. I would've liked to hear more about the cultures of those countries, but yet he manages to keep going with the story without mentioning some important parts. (At least important if we want to read about the actual story, but maybe these events are not important to Swft, the writer, perhaps Swift doesn't intend us to see the actual story, but what the story signifies). Even though it appears at first as if he is leaving out very important parts of the novel, we can begin to see the events to which he is directing us to, the ones that he really cares about. He cares about the events that seem less important.

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