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carried off and dropped by an eagle bringing this voyage to an end. Exploited
and put on display for profit, Gulliver becomes ill and almost dies from exhaustion. His nurse and protector, indeed one of only two real friends in
the book, is a nine-year-old child worker, Glumdalclitch. Swist’s and Jenkins’ texts reflect a world in which child labour and child-gistedness were widely exploited—think of Blake’s child-victims, or even the juvenile career of Mozart. (In a very interesting essay, ‘The Yahoo in the Doll’s House, Gulliver’s Travels: The Children’s Classic’, John Traugott, examining the first two books of Swist’s work, argues that the child-like ludic quality of both books is central to Swist’s project). Gulliver also reflects a childlike fascination with unpleasant or gross adult physicality, though in Jenkins’ retelling, Swist’s misogyny, his concentration on details of female anatomy to reflect physical revulsion, is considerably and understandably toned down given modern sensitivity with regard to gender. Gulliver realises that however brave he is, he will always appear amusing or comic to the giants; that whether one is a hero or clown is a matter of perspective. Jenkins captures the essentially anti-heroic theme of Swist’s original. Gulliver engages with the King of Brobdingnag to explain British and European politics and wars. There is a considerably shortened and restrained version of the anti-war section of Swist’s writing in this chapter.
Book three of Swist’s work, the voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan is the most disparate and least focused of Swist’s narratives, and that most frequently omitted from children’s retellings. Its plot seems loose. There is no companion character such as the King or Queen or Glumdalclitch in Brobdingnag, or the Master in the final book with whom Gulliver’s thoughts and feelings are debated and tested. It is not surprising that Jenkins and Riddell reproduce much of it however because it has a strong
surreal science fiction element which has a particularly modern appeal. Some of its details seem particularly relevant in the 21st-century world in which scientists have cloned a sheep, made a mouse grow a human ear, and where people have
V. Jonathan Swist’s Gulliver, 2004 103