Not so swiftly read

A poster of a sleeping baby on the subway has infected me with some happiness. It wasn't a picture of a posed baby, all looking into the camera. Those tend to suck.

This shot just captured pure contentment. I found it enthralling for that.

Maybe it WAS just a cute baby and I've been tricked. I hope not.

Tired, had to get up to go pay for my brother to take the security guard course so that he can get a job, thereby relieving me of some money worry pressure, thereby helping me pay off debts sooner, thereby allowing me to move on with my life.

It may help him too, who can say?

Finally finished Gulliver's Travels. You know that book was published in the early 18th century?? Like, 17-something! I had no idea it was that old! It makes the whole thing that much more impressive, plus I can forgive it its dryness (which was the style at the time).

No it really isn't much of a story, but as early speculative fiction it's remarkable. Each section is "what if [crazy premise] was real?", each premise used to sucker punch contemporary society. The sections are mostly divided into the one with the little people, the most famous story, then the land of giants, sort of well known, and then the last two parts that no one has ever heard of: the weird people that live on a floating island (it uses magnets! This was written in 17-uh, something! Magnets!) and then the land populated by rational horses and animalistic Yahoos (i.e. humans).

Sadly, most of the text boils down to descriptions of how things are different in each land, specifically with an eye to size in the first two parts (duh). Like I said, it could be pretty dry, and if you already get the gist of it, yeah, there really isn't much point in reading the whole thing.

The third story, despite having a floating island (magnets!) was the section I enjoyed the least, if you had to skip a section I'd go for that one. But definitely read through the last bit when Gulliver lives with the rational horses- with that one Gulliver is convinced humans suck, and because of that his character actually has some kind of arc. It's a bit of a downer that he doesn't end up thinking humans are okay after all (after returning home it takes him years to be able to stand the company of his wife and children again) but seeing as the point of the book isn't an enjoyable story but to tear down and expose the worst of humanities foibles (that, big surprise, are still true today) then how could I ask for some apologetic turn around ending?

That Jonathan Swift kept his integrity, at least!

(okay, the guy didn't originally publish under his own name, so he wasn't exactly risking himself in the writing of his attacks... but it is pretty amazing that he published AS Gulliver, saying the book was a non fictional travelogue.)