Page 105 - Gullivers

manner of physical sensation with precision. He makes clothes and furniture from unfamiliar materials. He builds a seaworthy boat. He converses with all manner of beings. He is merciful. He tries to behave politely and consider political necessities. He plays many roles to please those he depends on. He has some modest political principles, for example he rejects slavery and colonialism. He survives. As the book approaches the end his feelings are increasingly called into play until the reader is drawn into his shock and sorrow at being exiled from his beloved Houyhnhnms. All of these characteristics are faithfully preserved in the Jenkins text, but are for the most part subverted in the illustrations where most of the time Gulliver appears silly, as in the tradition of political cartoons.
Jenkins’ retelling of book one, of Gulliver’s arrival in Lilliput, of his finding himself tied down on the shore and of his first encounter with the Lilliputians is written economically, plainly, simply, very much in tune with the original but lacking the intensity of Swist’s concentration on physical sensation.
This section is comparatively longer than the other three sections, in contrast to Swist’s original where it is shorter. The reader of Jenkins’ text is invited
to sympathise with Gulliver’s physical pain and discomfort: ‘I was instantly bombarded with hundreds of minute arrows which pricked me like so many needles and hurt terribly’ (p.12). However the accompanying illustration,
a stunning one and a half-page spread, makes such sympathy difficult, because it is riotously comic with, in particular, a single arrow sticking out of Gulliver’s bulbous nose.
Jenkins captures the complexity of point-of view in Swist. Much of the time we see things through Gulliver’s eyes but frequently Swist’s most biting satire comes from other figures. Much of Swist’s satire is included in the text, including the account of high-rope dancing by courtiers to win advancement, the conflict in Lilliput between courtiers who wear high-heeled and low-heeled shœs, and between Lilliput and Blefuscu - the war of Big Endians and Little Endians. Gulliver defeats the Blefuscu threat to Lilliput, but refuses to destroy
Chris Riddell
V. Jonathan Swist’s Gulliver, 2004 99