This is one of my favorite stories of all time. Sick and awesome. Amazing satire. The battle of the books was also fun. :D

This mf onto something

A collection of five of Swift's satiric works including the famous "A Modest Proposal." "The Battle of the Books" is most enjoyable. "The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit" seems so far removed from our times that it is difficult to recognize it as satire as opposed to merely yet another impenetrable philosophical essay.

Yeri, tenkit nasıl yazılır yazarken nasıl eğlenir, yüzyıllar evvel en güzel örneğini yazmış Swift, tavsiye ederim..

College reads: I only read chapters/sections relevant to my studies, hence the dnf (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)

Why o why did I refer to Goodreads reviews before taking up this one? Clearly some books are meant for a certain section of people, and when taken up by the other group, have a debilitating effect on them.

It had that effect on me....or maybe not. But many hours of my life were wasted.

funny man

https://elogioliterario.blogs.sapo.pt...

Only reason this isn’t 1 star is because of the title essay which is very funny and well done. Everything else is very uninteresting though, and often very difficult to parse, which I would understand if A Modest Proposal was not written in a completely understandable style that the author could’ve done everything else in. I don’t know, maybe I’m just dense, but the majority of the stories in here were not great.

Jonathan Swift first came to my attention when I was at university studying English literature. The first of these texts that I read was ‘A Modest Proposal’ and I must admit that I don’t believe it really was something that I could come to grips with. The following year, my second in my undergrad studies, I took on ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ and this was a revelation. To this day I consider that book to be one of my all time favourites, and a masterpiece of satirical literature. Dean Swift was undoubtedly a master of creating provocative texts that could still arouse laughter and fought nearly 300 years after his death.

Come forward to now and I have finally sat down and re-read ‘A Modest Proposal’ in this Penguin Classics collection of some of Swift’s shorter pieces. There is no doubt that this particular piece still stands well as an example of satirical writing. His mock proposition of eating Irish babies is brilliantly mordant and delightfully horrific. It could well be adapted or adopted for some of the issues of today; one might expect a similar proposal from a dot.com capitalist such as Musk or Bezos being the target for a modern day version of ‘A Modest Proposal’. Whilst the text and the context may be several centuries old Swift has written a timeless assault on societal, political and intellectual vices.

Unfortunately the rest of the book is nowhere near as engaging as this piece. There are moments where the reader of today will find something of interest, although the range of the engagement will depend on the nature of said audience. The student of Swift will be far more interested in the panoply of texts that are collated in this volume. Whereas, someone such as I who has a more abiding interest in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ and the more absurdist or silly traditions of satirical writing, will struggle.

The nub of the problem with this selection of Swift’s writing is that first of all the context is for the most part unfathomable for the modern reader. Every piece is more or less about the political and literary world in which Swift lived. The copious notes provided to help one when trying to understand or unravel the tortuous references included in the pieces enclosed in this book. However, no matter how Folsom and informative those notes are at the end of the day more or less all the writing is about things, people and events that hold little to no interest for the casual reader.

Some pieces are less embedded in their specific political or social context and these are the more engaging and enjoyable. ‘A Modest Defence of Punning’ is one such article, as is ‘Directions to a Footman’. ‘An Examination if Certain Abuses…in the City of Dublin’ has some passages that will definitely remind the reader of Book Three of ‘Gulliver’s Travel’ and ‘An Argument Against the Abolition of Christianity in England’ has some value too. The letters included in this volume offer some interesting personal insights into Swift’s life and circle of friends. However, there is no escaping the overarching importance of the then contemporary political, social and intellectual challenges that Swift is trying to address in these selected places. Unless one is also fascinated by the history of Ireland and its relationship with England I suspect that much of this text will not appeal to its reader.

Another problem of this book is that when one reads Swift’s prose his arcane and tortuous verbiage is not easily read. The satirist definitely enjoyed writing very long and complex articles that undoubtedly mirrored both the language and the conventions of the day. It is extremely hard to retain attention to every detail and comprehend all that Swift is trying to say in his writing. this is not necessarily the authors fault; it is arguably just as much my fault as a reader who cannot retain attention to Swift’s style of composition. Perhaps it would be better to read each individual article more than once and take one’s time over this selection instead of reading the book from cover to cover as if it were a simple narrative.

So who is the audience for ‘A Modest Proposal and Other Writings’? Students of Swift and literature of the period will definitely find value in reading this selection of the satirists work. I suspect historians will also find that this book will be of use, especially if they are studying Irish – English relations or perhaps the events surrounding the political struggles that arose in the British Isles after the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. If one comes to this book more as a casual reader of Swift or of literature from this period then I suspect you will come away with not as positive an experience as one might hope. Finally if you are not really into reading complex satire from nearly 3 centuries ago then I would suggest you stay clear of this Penguin Classic. Be happy with ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ and find more modern satires to read. I am glad that I have read this selection because it does give me more of an understanding about Swift and his work. Unfortunately it must be said that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I had hoped.

'A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick' was published anonymously in 1729. These were bad years in Ireland three failed harvests were followed by poverty and disease. 'A modest proposal... ' lays bare the politics and prejudice of the time. The structure of the pamphlet imitates the pamphlets being published which offered up serious proposals to the crisis.

The shocking suggestion is that the poor Irish should sell their children to the rich like cattle in order to gain financially. "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout." He discusses the benefits of such commerce to butchers, for the making of gloves for ladies and boots for men. He also suggests that there will be no more domestic violence as women will be valued for child bearing. There were rumours that people indulged in cannibalism but those rumours existed in Edmund Spensers day.

At the time William Petty was surveyor in Ireland and worked for Cromwell, he mapped and measured creditors, what was taken and given to soldiers and the cronies of Cromwell. These statistics were part of a belief in a mathematical solution. The Irish economy was extractive and produce was taken and sold in England.

Swift was Dean of St. Patrick's cathedral a position partly of exile and due to failure in his career. In this work he is emulating his sermons, satirising people who think they can reform and holding forth that people will ever change. He contributed to public arguments about how Ireland was ruled. In the 1720's he objected anonymously via the 'Drapiers letters' to the underhanded winning of a contract to recoin the currency without the consultation of the Anglo Irish community. He became a hero for this intervention. Although Swift denunciates he doesn't necessarily sympathise with the people. I enjoyed this and I encourage visitors to Dublin to visit St Patrick's cathedral.

And thus it may, if the verbal effrontery of such an utterance may be indulged, however briefly, be averred, with the blessings of those guardians on the battlements of concinnity, even modestly asseverated, if such a contradiction does not run counter to said diction, that the author's style, with such a fecund profusion of subordinate and even, dare I say, insubordinate clauses, rococo verbal flourishes, and sesquipedialian agglomerations, while constructed with a labyrinthine ingenuity that even daedalus would praise, are not, in the firm belief of this author, in fact, funny at all.

However, the titular essay is still quite witty, and less guilty of the verbal excesses of the other essays in this collection.