Tristram Shandy’s Reviews > Gulliver's Travels > Status Update

Fun! My partner and I will be reading Robinson Crusoe and then Gulliver's Travels soon. It'll be my third or fourth pass through Crusoe, but my first through Gulliver—and my partner's first pass through both. Can't wait to see what this one's like; never have read any Swift.

You should not expect a suspenseful story with Swift because what he is doing here is both satirize his own society and indulging in utopian concepts. Gulliver is far different from Robinson Crusoe, which has a story-line. I'd advise you to read it in an annotated version to help you understand all the allusions Swift is making - I have got the Oxford University edition, for example. You may also want to read Swift's deeply cynical A Modest Proposal.