Read The Classics: Gulliver's Travels March 21, 2009

The Multnomah County Library invites you to take part in a new book series, where you can read some of the best all-time classics and discuss them under the leadership of Dr. Katya Amato, professor of literature at PSU. Participation is free, but registration is required. You can register online at http://www.multcolib.org/events/classics/1600.html
A limited number of books will be available free of charge for those who pre-register.

In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift hooks the reader with the first two phenomenally imaginative stories and then continues on to the bitter commentary on human nature, morals, government, mortality/immortality and science that is his real purpose. After Brobdingnag, Gulliver encounters further amazing peoples, situations and inventions in four more imaginary countries, followed by Japan, as Swift's satire sharpens its edge. After returning to England, where he hoped to stay for the rest of his life, he takes one more trip, and ends up in the country of the Houyhnhnms, where the horses are the sentient beings. There you will meet the Yahoos. You may never think of that word or human nature in same light again! Like Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels is told as if written by Gulliver, and as with Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels appealed to the wanderlust of its time, a time when the real things people were discovering around the world were not that much less startling than the imagined.

Official Website: http://www.multcolib.org/events/classics/1600.html