Sempre più convinto che se abbiamo Saunders è grazie a Vonnegut. E se Vonnegut è stato ciò che è stato, lo deve a Mark Twain (e Ambrose Bierce). Ma il nonno della satira moderna è sicuramente Jonathan Swift.

Avanguardistico, una Modesta Proposta, se scritto oggi, creerebbe lo stesso scalpore di trecento anni fa.

Ok I liked it and I’m gonna rank the essays best to worst (sorry to those who don’t care)

1.) A Modest Proposal - obviously the funniest and cleverest one so it makes sense why it’s in the title. I also like how it’s a modest proposal specifically, as opposed to a boastful proposal. I also wouldn’t be boastful if I proposed cannibalism of children though so it makes sense

2.) The Battle of the Books - made me laugh imagining actual books going to battle. reminded me of that scene in beauty and the beast

2.) A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit - I appreciated the main metaphor in this and I did agree with most of the sentiments but maybe I just don’t like reading about religion

3.) A Meditation upon a Broomstick - short and sweet and silly

4.) An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England - nothing revolutionary said and did not make me giggle. Again, don’t really enjoy reading essays about religion

Overall this book reminded me of something we’d read in English class and I miss Mr. Aldrich so I enjoyed myself

Short, funny and extremely sarcastic! Worth reading!

Todavia, é sintoma da vaidade humana cada indivíduo imaginar que todo o universo se interessa pelas suas preocupações mais mesquinhas. - "Dissertação Relativa à Estimulação Mecânica do Espírito, Numa Carta a Um Amigo. Fragmento."

Uma vassoura, porém, talvez seja, direis vós, o símbolo de uma árvore de cabeça para baixo; e o que é o homem, dizei-me, senão uma criatura às avessas, com as faculdades animais perpetuamente às cavalitas do racional, a cabeça onde deviam estar os calcanhares, a refocilar a terra! - "Meditação Acerca de Uma Vassoura"

pois de que serve a liberdade de pensamento se não produzir liberdade de ação? - "Argumentação Para Provar Que a Abolição do Cristianismo na Inglaterra Poderá, no Actual Estado de Coisas, Causar Algumas Contrariedades, e Que Talvez Não Produza os Bons Efeitos Pretendidos."

inacreditável

The satire landed flat for me; I felt that the social commentary was possible, could have been even more incisive, without Swift having to resort to the the baby-eating talk to make his point.

Is satire an excuse for being ambiguous or even direct? Does it allow for jest to be interpreted as policy or vice versa?

I don’t know the value of these thought experiments other than shedding the light to thought experiments that result in the fabric of society.

There is still a lot I need to understand about satire. The Modest Proposal essay was by far the most uncomfortable to read in this book.

"A full and true account of the battle fought last friday between the ancient and the modern books in saint James's library" ⭐⭐⭐⭐

"A meditation upon a broomstick." ⭐⭐⭐

"A discourse concerning the mechanical operation of the spirit. In a letter to a friend. A fragment." ⭐⭐

"An argument to prove that abolishing Christianity in England may, as things now stand, be attended with some inconveniences, and perhaps not produce those many good effects proposed thereby." ⭐⭐

"A modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burthen to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public." ⭐⭐⭐

"Mors omnibus communis"

"A Modest Proposal" is so fucking ridiculously contemporary that I can't help but be the one to say it for the millionth time. If you think things have gotten too raw and uncivilized in today's age, and that people were more well mannered in the olden days, you are....full O' SHITE!

I'm sure no one reading this actually does think this way but still...I love being able to add this bit of actual, factual info and not feeling the least bit bad about it because history is genteel only to the people who see the past through rose-colored glasses which are dipped in (bull) shit...

I also like that Swift was a great hater of everything...also, unless I'm mistaken, a royalist conservative and a pretty trenchant religious one at that....and yet, and yet, as Yeats was wont to say: "world besotted traveler he/ served the cause of human liberty"

So SNL, the Daily Show, Carlin, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce et al were 200 years in the making (and that's just talkin' Swift here, mind you)...

Also I remember reading that prominent literary critic of his once remarked that the narrator this book has what he brilliantly refers to as "a nervous hiccup"- he's not being outwardly snotty, there's no punk rock-ishness intended. You can hear it if you listen, its in the last sentence. The narrator's more like an acquiescent bureaucrat sincerely attempting to remedy the situation at hand for the colonial overlords...who happen to be enslaving his own people with exorbitant rents and property rights which leave much to be desired....which is pretty much where I think a satirist is these days.

If you look at the characters or personae your average comedian or satirical talk show host (ahem, Stewart and Colbert, especially, which gives it a different spin entirely) has, its all about being a sort of befuddled, confused, average guy who is trying to make these lumbering, incoherent systems and bizarre situations run smoothly. The technocrats are mad. The comedian is a member of the lower order, too smart and too normal to be from the avant- outside, anxiously clearing his throat and calling the masters of the universe into question using irony, paradox, scatology, and an almost childlike sense of absurdity to show how wrong and possibly evil the powers that be are, how they show themselves to be almost without fail.

It's not that they stand outside the system- it's that they are a part of the madness and therefore have a front row seat to the insanity in high places. Butchering of language (that precious gift), the unnecessary deaths of innocents, baldfaced lies, cynicism to assume that such things are or should be the due matter of course, sinister opportunities resulting in collateral damage and mind-boggling failure and outrageous profits for shady people who everyone already pretty much knows to be shady, deep down, because they are a part of it too.


So, therefore, all the proposals are modest. Immodesty wouldn't notice itself without the contrast. Swift lives!

I’m giving this book 4 stars solely on the merits of “A Modest Proposal.”

A Modest Proposal is great. The "Other Satirical Works" are not. Part of the difficulty I have with some of the other satirical essays is that many of the references to the culture of that time are lost on me, so that undermines the satirical bite significantly. Even taking that into account, most of the essays are underwhelming in terms of implementation, as several of them have an intriguing concept behind them but are simply not well executed. On the other hand, A Modest Proposal stands as a classic example of well-articulated work of satire. Amazingly, it has not lost its edge even after hundreds of years and after the geopolitical situation has massively changed. I would highly recommend giving A Modest Proposal a read for those who have not, but feel free to pass over most of the rest of this collection.