JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift

When Lemuel Gulliver sets off from London on a sea voyage, little does he know the many incredible misadventures awaiting. Shipwrecked at sea, nearly drowned, he washes ashore upon an exotic island called Liliput–where the people are only 6″ tall. Next he visits a land of incredible giants called the Brobdingnagians. They are more than 60′ tall. He travels to Lapauta, a city that floats in the city, & to Glubbdubdrib, the Island of Sorcerers. his final voyage brings him into contact with the Yahoos–a brutish race of subhumans–& an intelligently virtuous race of horse, the Houyhnhnms.

I appreciate how Lemuel Gulliver’s perspective changed from part one to part four. During his first voyage, Gulliver describes the characters and their actions as they unfold before him. He speaks from a distant, purely curious, point of view and doesn’t consider himself to be a citizen of Lilliput. However, after his fourth voyage Gulliver learns to communicate with the Houyhnhnms and strangely begins to refer to himself as one of them.

Gulliver is seen as an individual governing the seas alone. The idea that Gulliver’s wife and children received him with great surprise and joy after his long adventures seems inconsistent with the values of modern society. By rarely mentioning Gulliver’s family, he is seen as an individual casually wandering the seas without any real purpose in life.

An interesting link is developed between the societies that Gulliver meets on his voyages and the human society that he resides in. Gulliver spent years living amongst two flawed communities and when he returns to England, subsequently finds flaws with his family and friends. Swift has written this to ironically illustrate to the reader that England’s political controversies are an indication that all of mankind are flawed. Hence, why Gulliver wishes to live like a horse.

“My wife and family received me with great surprise and joy, because they concluded me certainly dead; but I must freely confess the sight of them filled me only with hatred, disgust, and contempt, and the more by reflecting on the near alliance I had to them. For although since my unfortunate exile from the Houyhnhnm country, I had compelled myself to tolerate the sight of Yahoos, and to converse with Don Pedro de Mendez, yet my memory and imagination were perpetually filled with the virtues and ideas of those exalted Houyhnhnms. And when I began to consider that by copulating with one of the Yahoo species I had become parent of more, it struck me with the utmost shame, confusion, and horror.”

This is probably my favourite section of the book, because Gulliver speaks about his family with bitterness and cynicism. His mental state seems to have significantly deteriorated and the reader can’t help but doubt his reliability as a narrator. Gulliver’s decision to buy horses upon returning to England shows this mental deterioration. This highlights a theme of alienation (particularly evident during his fourth voyage), which is emphasised by Gulliver’s return to England because he rejects human society and refers to Don Pedro de Mendez as a Yahoo.

 

My Score: 7/10
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The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now…

Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is set in the near future where a Christian theocracy has overthrown the government. The main character, Offred, is a handmaid for reproductive purposes. Although Offred does not possess an authoritative role, she is in the midst of a new world that reflects contemporary society. This alterity introduces the thematic subject of gender, which revolves around its theme of existing double standards within a futuristic setting. Feminism is another thematic subject present in Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and is highlighted by the gender struggles and the class system’s marginalisation of women.

In 2005, Atwood spoke to The Guardian about how she labels her novel as speculative fiction, and the conventions that can be found within: exploring the limits of humanity, delving into the proposed changes to social organisation, and the possibility of new and advanced technologies. In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, there is no futuristic, advanced technology and its abandonment altogether makes way for primitive ceremonies. The limits of humanity are seen through Offred’s role as a handmaid for The Commander, and her subsequent relationship with him. There is no legal protection, no outside force trying to overthrow the totalitarian ruling, and Offred and the other handmaid’s are forced to accept the little power that they have. Also, the proposed changes to social organisation are the Gileadean regime and its efforts to control sex and sexuality. This government ultimately destroys itself, which is unsurprising because the regime seems to underestimate the importance of sexuality. Offred contemplates suicide in the novel, but she ignores this and continues her affair with Nick because she enjoys their sexual intimacy and confides in him. This enforces the power of sexual acts, and illustrates how Offred will not submit to the pressure and torture of the government.

Atwood manipulates the setting to exaggerate the flaws of contemporary society. The government enforces the unfair distribution of power between characters, and this illustrates an abuse of power. Atwood’s incorporation of setting helps drive the piece and highlights power dynamics between characters. Although this idea of a ‘new world’ is a common convention within speculative fiction, its main function is usually to challenge the nature of humanity. In addition to highlighting the flaws of contemporary society, Atwood pushes the boundaries of this genre convention by exploring each character’s reaction to their new setting and their attempt to break free from their trapped physical and psychological state.

Other influential narrative techniques in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ are the use of present tense to heighten and maintain suspense, and the word ‘night’ to introduce and conclude the story. This imagery represents the dark, bleak life that has befallen Offred.

My Score: 9/10

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road focuses on a father’s relationship with his son as they journey through a post-apocalyptic America. The novel possesses common themes and binary oppositions of speculative fiction: familiar vs. unfamiliar, insider vs. outsider, isolation, and the discovery of the unknown. These are essential in speculative fiction and dystopian novels; McCarthy’s uncanny, surreal location is a vital part of the story and propels it forward.

McCarthy omits a lot of information about the past, and in the flashbacks he instead focuses on the relationship between the father and his deceased wife. This left me wondering what happened to America prior to the events in the novel. Ultimately, McCarthy uses the dialogue between the man and his son to reveal back story; however, he reveals very little of it. The man’s flashbacks are only about his wife because in that situation, that is all he thinks about.

The dialogue effectively illustrates the relationship dynamic between the boy and his father. The boy is growing up in a post-apocalyptic world and their bleak, disruptive surroundings make me wonder why they want to continue living. The lack of punctuation and the disjointed conversation are a stylistic technique that’s not often seen in speculative fiction. This emphasises that not only has the man’s country collapsed, but civilisation has as well. Memories and dreams are revealed sporadically throughout the novel and are often cut short. Backstory is usually a major part of speculative fiction; however, McCarthy has omitted a lot of information and instead focused on the collapse of language and the breakdown of speech between the father and his son.

McCarthy’s manipulation of language is an innovative way of drawing parallels to the characters’ surroundings. The fragmented, expositional sentences compare to the fractured lives of the man and his son, and these sentences align with the characters’ fragmented process of sensory perception. These references can also be made through the objects that the man and the boy have to throw away, including the boy’s flute, which represents a contemporary medium for language. When the boy and his father discard this flute, a parallel is drawn to the loss of language that now inhabits the post-apocalyptic setting of The Road.

My Score: 8/10

Deeper Water by Jessie Cole

Innocent and unworldly, Mema is still living at home with her mother on a remote, lush hinterland property. It is a small, confined, simple sort of life, and Mema is content with it.

One day, during a heavy downpour, Mema saves a stranger from a flooded creek. She takes him into her family home, where, marooned by floods, he has to stay until the waters recede. And without either of them realising it, he opens the door to a new world of possibilities that threaten to sweep Mema into the deep

‘They say every hero has to leave home, but what those first steps are like I’m yet to know’

Jessie Cole’s latest title is quite similar to her debut novel: an outsider’s life intersects with someone from a small town. The novel is very character-driven (again, much like Darkness on the Edge of Town) and allows the reader to seep into these characters’ lives unnoticed and observe their somewhat personal circumstances.

The story is subtly tragic – Mema’s growing desire for the stranger disturbs the reader because they know that they don’t quite fit and that it’ll never work out. They live two completely different lifestyles, and Mema’s isolation from society is highlighted even further when she saves the stranger. He’s obsessed with gaining access to his email accounts and his laptop, and Mema struggles to understand why those things are important to him.

The characters intersect at the right moments so that the reader doesn’t feel overpowered by the plot or character relations. And the development of character is gradual and graceful. The novel illustrates a comparison between two separate lives and details the resulting conflict when those lives clash.

At times, the pace of the story seemed to be slow and the characters seemed stagnant. But if you can get past that and appreciate the fluidity of the writing and the raw beauty of the characters, then you’ll enjoy this novel.

My Score: 8/10

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

As a child, Kathy – now thirty-one years old – lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed – even comforted – by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now.

Ishiguro is a stylistic genius. This novel is written almost in stream of consciousness and jumps all around between past, present, and future. And yet, it all seems to make perfect sense. And his writing is poetic and lyrical and beautiful.

Kathy narrates the novel in first person and details her time spent at Hailsham with Ruth and Tommy and how they’re destined to finish their lives as donors for people in the ‘real world’. Ishiguro weaves past and present together seamlessly, and manages to break up sections of each chapter so that you know where the story is headed. Although some believe that the story moves a little slowly, this novel is meant to be character-driven and not plot-driven. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are all deeply-imagined characters that have been fleshed out and presented as three-dimensional protagonists.

Since I consider this novel to be a classic, I’d recommend it to anyone who reads and loves classics. I’d also recommend it to those people who are looking for something that’s ‘easy to read’ (I don’t really know how to define something like that). This conversationalist style of writing that Ishiguro has employed definitely proves easy to read and easy to follow.

My Score: 9/10