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Los Viajes De Gulliver (2007)

by Martin Jenkins(Favorite Author)

4.13 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

843168139X (ISBN13: 9788431681395)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Vicens Vives

review 1: Lemuel Gulliver had been stowed away within the covers of one of my books on my shelves since I first read 'Gulliver's Travels' as a youngster. That is until I spotted this delightfully illustrated and retold version of his travels in a bookshop last week; the illustrations are so marvellous I just couldn't resist it ... and then it suddenly got to the top of my 7,000+ to read pile!Born in Nottinghamshire but living quietly in his south London home Lemuel took a post as a ship's surgeon on the 'Antelope' that sailed from Bristol on 4 May 1699. Shipwrecked he escaped with five others in a lifeboat but when that overturned he was the only survivor. And then when he came round he found himself bound hand and foot on the island of Lilliput.The little people of Lilliput found h... moreim fascinating but kept him as a prisoner. But as time went on the court abandoned their plans to get rid of him and befriended him so much so that he learnt the language and advised them on their relations with the neighbouring island of Blefusco. He was so much a part of the community that when he decided to return to England it was a sad day and the whole of Lilliput turned out to see him off.Back at home his wanderlust got the better of him and he embarked on a second voyage on the 'Adventure' on 20 June 1702. This time he found himself in Brobdingnag where, in direct contrast with Lilliput, the inhabitants were giants. He was treated as an oddity but once he learned the language (he was very proficient at languages even before his voyages) he became a confidant of the King. He was carried around in a small box, made into a chamber, but when a giant eagle flew off with it he had no choice but to leave Brobdingnag behind. Once more, after the eagle had dropped him and he landed on an English ship, he made his way home, arriving much to the delight of his wife, who was determined that he should not travel any more. But she could not stop him.So on 5 August 1706 he was on his way once more, this time to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubrib and Japan. Beset by pirates he spoke in Dutch with the captain who graciously set him adrift in a small boat with eight days' provisions. He was then picked up by pulleys in a chair and hoisted to a floating island by a people who had to have a flapper next to them so that they could be tapped on the mouth or ear in order to listen to anyone who spoke to them! More scary adventures followed including a visit to Glubbdubrib, the island of Sorcerers or Magicians, where he was confronted by ghosts. He eventually went to Luggnagg and on to Japan where he fell in with some Dutch sailors and eventually returned to England once more.His final voyage began on 7 September 1710 and, after a stop in Tenerife, Barbados and the Leeward Islands, he was taken prisoner by a newly recruited crew and later put ashore, abandoned on a seemingly uninhabited beach. But the island was inhabited, by some strange looking shaggy creatures, named Yahoos, who were ruled over by a colony of horses, called Houyhnhnms! Rather surprisingly he was befriended by the horses and one of them became his master, who he frequently conversed with and told all about the way the country that he, Lemuel, came from. The Houyhnhnms could not understand how his country could possibly operate the way it did and eventually they decided to let him return. They, therefore, built him a boat and set him on his way. He was picked up by some Portuguese sailors and duly returned home to his family for a final time, arriving on 5 December.Sixteen years and seven months of travelling were over and he recorded his travels for posterity, noting that often travellers embellished their tales but insisting that he had always stuck completely to the truth!Martin Jenkins retells 'Gulliver's Travels' with sympathy, retaining all the humour and social comment that Swift offered in a way that will appeal to young and old alike. And Chris Riddell's wonderful illustrations add to the enjoyment of a marvellous book, both in content and in production.
review 2: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver – retorld by Martin Jenkins illustrated by Chris RiddellA birthday gift. A beautiful book. Of course in some sense we know Gulliver from children’s stories and then there’s the real book by Swift which is not a children’s story at all. I remember a lecturere saying, what does it say about our culture – that we turn a text critical of our values, a satirial piece, into a children’s tale? I also remember as a student being impressed with the sense of context of a text – with the fact that the European audiences read travel descriptions, with the contemporary responses to Gullivers’ travels focussing on whether it is ‘true’ or not. Which sounds obviously ridiculous to us! Yet, contextually, what we know about the world outside our experience, how it is presented to us... Of course this is a retelling. And actually I understand that the content lends itself so much to storytelling, to the genre of the fantastical. That the style of the original is so bound in the old travel writing styl (which was very much the point then) that it is just too drawn out and – well, nowadays satire is presented more often inthe preformance arts, I think. But I am impressed – really impressed that this retelling is not an ‘innocent’ retelling. It keeps very much a sense of satire, of critical engagement. Of making fun of the narrator himself – both in the tone of the retelling and in the illustrations. I think I got the sense of the ‘utopian’ Houhnhnms’ (or at least their influence on Gulliver) as being deeply tainted by what we’d call facism or simplistic racism even stronger from this retelling than from what I remember of the original. And certainly more so than in my memory of children’s stories of it – which of course might be incomplete. As a picture-book child one does not ‘get’ satire. But I do mean to say that this retelling is a beautiful book, with a wonderful accordance between illustrations and writing and though the really good story is there, the tone of sardonic crisiticism of own values is there as well. less

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