Gulliver travels to Weston

Lemuel Gulliver is a character, in fact the main character in the eponymous novel, Gulliver’s travels by Jonathan Swift. These days people mostly know that Gulliver travelled to Lilliput where a race of very small people lived, and most of the fun is had, in films and cartoons, by having the giant trying to cope with living in a tiny world. However, in the original book by Swift, Gulliver actually makes four different voyages, the second to  Brobdingnag, the third to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan, and the fourth and last to the Country of the Houyhnhnms.

Brobdingnag is a place of giants, the third voyage takes him as we can see to a variety of different places, and the last voyage makes him to the world of the Houyhnhnms who are horses. We may read these novels as fantasies, but in fact, each voyage was a political satyr on the country and government of the time. We may not read them in the way they were intended, but they are still interesting and intriguing stories even if we understand them at a superficial level.

The image I have used as my featured picture is from the sand sculpture exhibition in Weston-super-Mare… My photo doesn’t really do the work justice!