If you are going to buy one book of Swift's in addition to the Travels, this Penguin miscellany gives you the best bang for your buck: superbly annotated and supplemented by both a glossary and a biographical dictionary (all such addenda amounting to 100pp of the 400 page length of this book), it moreover gives an admirable view of the arc of Swift's development as a writer of prose, both serious and satirical. What's more, if you find this volume agreeable to your tastes or interests, the Oxford Major Works largely focuses on other texts, repeating relatively few of the selections herein.

In spite of Swift's Olympian, clear, yet flawless and even (at times) approachable style, and despite his addiction to the periodic sentence, the subject-matter is rooted in its time and place and is thus never easy-going (though the notes do help). You would be well-served, then, in reading this alongside the majesterial, infinitely well-informed biography of the Man by John Stubbs Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel, which never reduces these essays (etc.) to either history or biography, but gives you just the right amount of context to wake them from their centuries-long slumber.

Of particular note are the famous title essay (obviously), the "Bickerstaff Papers" (wherein dude takes on the fake news of the pop astrologer, to hilarious effect), and the "Directions to Servants" (which perceptively satirizes both sides of that Depeche Mode song, "Master and Servant", with granular specificity)—and the excerpts from his letters to his best friend, Esther Johnson, the "Journal to Stella", which I am now going to have to find a used copy of, to read in its entirety.

Imagine for a moment you live in Ireland in 1729, where you are impoverished and your neighbours are starving. Poor children grow up to either beg, steal, sell their bodies, or die. An essay marketed as an economic treatise is in circulation, and you begin to read all the problems Ireland has. Yet the writer, Jonathan Swift, has a solution. Feed the children to the rich.
tThe serious becomes satirical. It goes in great detail how the children could be prepared and eaten. The admonition is this: A country that is increasingly becoming poorer, both economically and morally, will in the end destroy itself and its children will suffer first. Though it's not an abstract idea of a nation that will do this, but the government that is supposed to guide the country into prosperity. The rich will get richer, and the people who refuse to do anything about it won’t realize the mess they are allowing until it is too late. People will continuously fail to find work, but what work they do find they will already be too weak from lack of sustenance to do.
tFutures burnt away and misery fanning the flames of poverty and crime take away what each country attempts to promise: freedom. All that will be left in the ashes will be a country willing to devour its own children, metaphorically of course, to survive even when it is past deserving to exist.
tSwift brings out gloomy thoughts in the reader, ones that transcend impoverished Ireland, yet he does not want the reader to hate their own country. He wants to inspire change out of the love of a country that the reader knows could be better than it is. Perhaps because one must hold something dear if they hope to protect it and elevate it.
tThe gist/tone of the essay is this: Poverty is devouring the starving people. And perhaps we should let it. Do not talk to me about solutions such as letting go of pride and greed. Or exporting our own goods rather than importing everything. Or breaking free of England’s salivating jaws. Or hearing the voice of the people. Of course the solution is to eat the children, for any reasonable adult would tell you that they had rather been eaten as a child than suffer in this country.
Of course, the intention is to inspire the opposite tone and views. I think Swift does that quite well.

Eserde 8 farklı konuda deneme yer alıyor. Bu konularsa; tabi ki birçok aydınlanma dönemi yazarlarının ele aldığı üzere din, ruhban sınıfının egemenliği, dönemin toplumsal sorunları ve konuları, politika ve dönem siyasetçilerine ilişkin.
Bütün bu konularda, yazarın deneme seçimi; olabildiğince ısıran, yeren, son derece satirik ifadeler üzerinde yoğunlaşıyor. Yazarın ifadeleri yer yer öylesine derin ki, okuyucuya neyin hakikat neyin yergi olduğu sersemliğini yaşatabilir.

Kitaba da adını veren Alçakgönüllü Bir Öneri ise, yazarın uzunca bir sürede ele aldığı konular içinde kronolojik olarak son ve bence en iyi(!) sistem eleştirisi.

Bu dönem yazarlarını seven, eserlerindeki incelikten, karşıt düşüncelerindeki derinlikten ve ne olursa olsun kullandıkları dilden etkilenenlerin es geçmemesini umduğum deneme kitabı.

It's going to have to be a DNF. I have to say that I found it quite challenging. The old language took some time, but I was willing to try it since I got the book for free. However, I didn't finish the last short story, "A Modest Proposal." I understand that it's satire, but I couldn't stomach the idea of poor toddlers being consumed and the notion that poor people are only valuable as commodities. It made me think about the political views of the time and how they may have contributed to the dire situation of the workhouses.

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.

"I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes, as they have since gone through, by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor cloaths to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of intailing the like, or greater miseries, upon their breed for ever."

Seja lá o que se pense sobre a modéstia da proposta canibal, Bickerstaff foi uma ótima sátira de Swift para demonstrar o quão facilmente, mesmo no século 18, a opinião pública pode ser deformada com as formas midiáticas e de ignorância mais tradicionais.

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.

Que posso dizer? Parece que crianças estufadas são bastante boas mas tirando na Irlanda de 1700 é má ideia.
Swift é um génio literário claramente pouco apreciado, sendo que estes textos de um humor mordaz deveriam ser estudados na escola.

I bet this guy would be a hoot today, working for the Daily Show and the Onion.

One time, in high school, I came up with this idea to decrease our dependency on oil, end world hunger, and cure obesity. It was a very similar vibe to J. Swift's proposal. Mine, suck the bone marrow out of people. Our bodies would no longer support obesity, we could fly like birds, and we can feed the marrow to starving people. Bam.

Me and J. Swift, we could be friends.

The other essays in here are also satirical, but not as... appalling as the modest proposal.

Severek okuduğum kitapta benim hoşuma giden bazı kısımlar şunlar:

"...Çünkü dalları cennete uzanmış olsa da kökleri yeryüzündedir. Derin tefekküre dalmak etle, kanla yapıalcak iş değildir; etle, kanla girişilen tefekkür deneyimi, doğası gereği gevşer ve maddesel düzeye iner."

"... Gençliğin mahareti keşiftir, yaşlılığınsa yargı gücü; öyle ki ona sunacak daha az şey buldukça yargı gücümüz de gittikçe daha zor beğenir olur: Yaşamın akışı bunu gerektirir. Yaşlandığmızda arkadaşlarımız bizi memnun etmede gittikçe daha çok zorlanırlar, ama aynı zamanda memnun olup olmadığ��mız da onları gittikçe daha az ilgilendirir. Hiçbir bilge adam genç olmayı dilemez. Başıboş bir akıl yürütme, daha önceki sağlıklı akıl yürütmelerinizin ağırlığını azaltır. İyi davranışların altında yatan itkiler kılı kırk yaran bir incelemeyle gelmez. İyi olsun kötü olsun çoğu eylemin nihai nedeninin insanın kendisine duyduğu sevgi olduğu kabul edilir; ama bazı insanların öz sevgisi onları başkalarını mutlu etmeye iter, başkalarınınkiyse yalnızca kendilerini mutlu etmeye.
Erdemle kötülük arasındaki ayrım budur."

"... Keyfi iktiadr bir prens için en doğal baştan çıkarıcı nesnedir; nasıl ki genç bir adamın şarap ya da kadınlar karşısında, bir yargıcın rüşvet, yaşlı bir adamın cimrilik, bir kadınınsa yüzeysellik karşısında baştan çıkması işten bile değildir."

"... Bir adam kendisiyle benim arama belli bir mesafe koyduğunda, ikimizin de birbirine eşit uzaklıkta olduğumuz fikri beni rahatlatıyor."

"Tüm nehirler denize bağlanır. Xerxex, ordusuna dikkatle bakıp da yüz yıldan kısa bir süre içinde tüm askerlerinin ölmüş olacağını düşününce ağlamış. Anacreon'u öldüren, bir üzüm çekirdeği olmuş; şiddetli hazzın da, tıpkı şiddetli üzüntü gibi, insanı öldürebileceğini biliyoruz. Bu dünyada sabit kalan hiçbir şey yok, iktidarsızlıktan başka; gene de Platon, erdem kendini dünyaya gerçek kıyafetiyle gösterecek olsa, tüm insanların onun karşısında büyüleneceğini düşünüyordu. Ama şimdi, dünyayı yöneten çıkar olduğundan, Jüpiter'in kendisi dahi dünyaya inecek olsa, Danae'ye göründüğü gibi, bir altın yağmuru altında görünmediği sürece hor görülecektir; çünkü bugünlerde güneşin yalnızca yükselişine bakılıyor, batışına değil."

Swift, çok önemli bir adam. Mutlaka okunması gerek, klasikler zaten kişinin okuma sürecinde mutlaka basılması gereken basamaklar.

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.