Kyle’s Reviews > The Travels and Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen > Status Update
Kyle
is on page 86 of 238
The telling of tall tales includes second-hand knowledge from a fictional father to contemporary explorers like Phipps, Hamilton and Cook. The shape and scope of the world was shrinking as massive European empires extended beyond their borders. Nevertheless a boasting Baron evinces that there is still enough wilderness left unconquered, especially with a return to the moon and whirlwind tour of the inhabitants there.
— Dec 16, 2020 05:50PM
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Kyle’s Previous Updates
Kyle
is on page 213 of 238
Was this book really about Baron Munchausen, or simply an early form of fan-fiction forgery? Much like in-world appearances of Don Quixote and Rousseau, there is a presence yet no life in what appears. Where is the ride on the cannonball or pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, signifiers of someone else less maniacal than this Munchausen? Perhaps I missed much of these bits in the sequence of sentence fragments.
— Dec 28, 2020 01:10PM
Kyle
is on page 171 of 238
A hero for a vastly different time, whose gleeful whim to find the source of the Nile propagates so many of the colonialist crimes for following centuries not even: Rousseau, Voltaire or Beelzebub offer any resistance to the Baron’s bold plan to get African moon emigrants addicted to fudge. Even at a moment of satire with the white slave traders he has an obvious bout of indignation, not really helping anyone else.
— Dec 26, 2020 08:55PM
Kyle
is on page 130 of 238
No time to dillydally with the story as Raspe figures out late in the first volume that Baron needs to get somewhere, and so sends him forth and back to England: shot by a cannon, a fall through the planet via Mt. Etna, across the ocean and all over the Americas by giant eagles in the supplement. The second volume’s preface pronounces its apolitical stance while preparing to send him off to colonize Africa - yikes!
— Dec 20, 2020 08:50AM
Kyle
is on page 59 of 238
Not content to expend all his frolicsome fury of animals in sport, the Baron decimates entire garrisons of humans, sinks armada and plays similar pranks with hot-air balloons, occasionally in the service of various Turkish and English warlords but more often just for personal kicks. An ancestral sling once used by David as well as Shakespeare is just one of the fantastical objects to be accessory to his merry mayhem.
— Dec 12, 2020 06:00PM
Kyle
is on page 34 of 238
An affable windbag Baron recounts his early career and adventures and they start to sound like a madcap pastiche of the first few chapters of Leviticus, where the torture and sacrifice of animals is conducted in a sporting gentlemanly manner, far from the morality of the ancient Israelites. His travels also have a scattershot approach of being vaguely continental with indistinct initial visits to Russia and the moon.
— Dec 04, 2020 02:04PM
