Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726)

Having made several trips to the cinema over the last couple of months, I've seen the new Orange advert starring Jack Black in Gulliver's Travels far more often than I'd like to. (On a side note, what's happened to the Orange ad guys from old? They were much more entertaining that the movie placement versions). And while I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than watch Jack Black's 'comedy' schtick in the movie, it drew me to Jonathan Swift's novel, which has been sitting on my shelves for a good few years. Although not in the Classic Adventures series of books, it sits comfortably with the adventure stories of Verne and Stevenson. 

I'm willing to bet that the new movie version has not one tiny bit of the wit and critique of humanity that Swift delivers in what is really a series of 4 adventures experienced by Gulliver over several years in the early 18th century. Gulliver's first voyage ends with him shipwrecked on Lilliput with a population of tiny, inches high peoples who, in the iconic image associated with the story, pin him down with ropes. What is less well known about the story is how Gulliver goes on to learn the language of the Lilliputians, helps to capture the neighbouring island's navy and eventually falls from favour when he pisses on the king's castle to extinguish a fire! The latter is not the behaviour you'd expect from a classic, let alone other mentions of bodily functions. They crop up again on Gulliver's second adventure in Brobdingnag where the people are many feet tall and Gulliver is the tiny one, and he has to run out into the garden to relive himself. 

In Lilliput, Swift examines the way that countries go to war over trivialities, in this case over how high a heel on a shoe should be. In Laputa, a floating city visited in part 3, Gulliver finds a race concerned only with music and maths. In Glubbdubdrib, again in part 3 (where Gulliver visits several regions), our protagonist finds a people able to bring forth the spirits of any dead person in history, so Gulliver enjoys himself conversing with Roman leaders and Greek philosophers. In Luggnagg, he finds that some of the race are able to live forever, a prospect he finds fascinating, but soon learns that although the live forever, they don't stop aging, and find a fate worse than death. 

The first two voyages, to Lilliput and Brobdingnag follow a similar pattern and involve descriptions of each land and peoples and how they're different from Europeans, while part 3 of the book takes in several races who are 'regular' sized but have particular quirks such as immortality. Each part allows Gulliver/Swift to muse on certain aspects of European behaviour in contrast to the peoples he encounters. It's an interesting journey and, once I could get into the way Swift writes (with random commas and semi-colons gallore), I really enjoyed the trip. I found the book even more interesting in part 4, where Gulliver finds that horses, or Houyhnhnms, rule the land, and primitive, caveman-like humans/Yahoo are kept as pets or run wild. 

The Houyhnhnms are fascinated with Gulliver, a clothed, educated Yahoo, and Gulliver is equalled bemused with how the horses' society works. They have no word for or conception of lies, and they live in harmony. In the most blatantly critical essay on society in the tome, Gulliver discusses with his 'master' how humans live in a world of crooked politicians, scheming lawyers and general baseness. In the telling, Gulliver decides that he wants to stay in the idyllic world of the Houyhnhnms and shun the human race with all of their faults. He shows even less regard for his wife and children back home in Britain than earlier, when on escaping the other worlds and returning home, within months he's back on a boat.

More than just a series of adventures with unusual peoples, Gulliver's Travels is amusing, shocking and critical of 18th century society, and there is much more to Swift's work than a man tied down by little people. It's a book that made me think and I enjoyed it for many reasons. And even more than ever I will definitely be avoiding the new movie version.

Black Beauty (Anna Sewell, 1877)

The next Classic Adventures hardbook plucked from the pile was Black Beauty. This is one of the few I attempted to read when I got these books back in 1993, but I never made it through to the end for some reason. Reading it again, from beginning to end, I think I know why. It's because horses are essentially boring. 

If I was a pre-teen girl, maybe Black Beauty would have held me spellbound. As it is, this first-horse narration of a horse's life, complete with detail on saddles and bits, with an occasional adventure like a fire, is pretty pedestrian stuff. It's a well-written book, and it's an interesting concept - telling a story from a horse's POV - but it did little for me. At least I can say I've read it now. And move on to another book. 

Oh and where Three Musketeers, Treasure Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea made me want to seek out good movie versions, I won't be tracking down any filmic Black Beauties on Amazon.co.uk

The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas, 1844)

I just finished The Three Musketeers, another Classic Adventures romp, this time through seventeenth century Paris, following D'Artagnan and his three friends, Athos, Porthos and Aramis as they become involved in court intrigues and war with England. 

I enjoyed this book, although occasionally it took some concentration to work out who was tricking whom at some points, and despite the three musketeers having clearly defined personalities, I had trouble picking them apart, and remembering which one was religious, which was vain, etc - one reason for this I think is that although the book is named for them, it is D'Artagnan's story that dominates, the musketeers are his side kicks and supporting players. 

Dumas writes with a dry sense of humour, and the plot moves on apace, with meetings between characters often not showing their import until several chapters later. The central plot involves a mysterious gentleman and then a mysterious lady, or Milady, who come to offend D'Artagnan. As the book moved on and storylines began to interweave more clearly, I very much enjoyed the caper. The French history lesson along the way is interesting too.

Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883)

The next Classic Adventures to come off the shelf was Treasure Island, following on from the nautical adventures of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Reading Stevenson's classic tale in 2010 is an odd experience, especially since the only knowledge I have of the story comes from the hilarious Muppet Treasure Island movie (oh and the under-rated Disney animation, Treasure Planet). I was surprised to note how strongly the Muppet movie draws from the book, with particular reference to the character names, although there's a good deal less murder in the film.

I didn't find Treasure Island's style or language to be as gripping as in 20,000 Leagues, and the story is incredibly familiar. What makes it odd reading this book today is that it comes off like a massive pirate cliché... but really, it's the book that started all of the clichés - the one-legged pirate, parrot on the shoulder, the song 'yo ho' etc. In fact, it's surprising just how much of this book has become common parlance when people think of pirates today. Without Treasure Island there would be no Pirates of the Caribbean ride or movies! I suppose it's similar to how the novel Dracula has informed nearly all vampire myths, books, TV and movies that followed it.

Talking of Dracula, I loved that novel, despite my familiarity with vampire-lore (thanks Buffy), because there is a great deal of depth to it. Treasure Island I was less enamoured with. There were no surprises and the plot was fairly simple. The narrator, Jim Hawkins, is pretty non-descript, but Long John Silver is the star, the one-legged pirate/ship's cook of legend. The pirates are shown as a blood thirsty lot, and the bodies pile up more than I'd expected, but Silver comes out of it alright and there's a happy ending. It was probably exciting in 1883, today it's a bit tame. So Treasure Island is a good story, peopled with strong although not too exciting characters, yet I feel it's greatest strength is as a source for all the pirate literature and media that followed it.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne, 1869)

At my childhood home last weekend I was updating my parent's computer and waiting for installations when I picked a book at random from the shelf from a hardback collection I had not taken when I moved out. This Classic Adventures series was a fortnightly collection that I got when I was 10 years old, according to the date I've written in the 'This book belongs to...' section at the front. I remember reading Little Women and The Prisoner of Zenda, but none of the other 20 or so books. All are considered classics, and I think I'll appreciate them more as an adult reader, as I've brought them all back to my flat with me.

I polished off Twenty Thousand Leagues... within a week as I found it really enthralling, at least for the most part. I don't know how the French original reads, but the translation (in this abridged version, though how abridged I've no idea) is witty and uses some wonderful language. The book follows M. Arronax, his man Conseil, and Canadian harpooner Ned Land as they are taken aboard Captain Nemo's Nautilus submarine and travel 20,000 leagues around the world - not 20,000 leagues beneath the sea as the title implies. 

Those are pretty much the only characters found in the bulk of the book, although the first several chapters explain how Arronax and co end up on Nautilus when they are washed overboard the ship that is tracking a mysterious leviathan... which turns out to be Captain Nemo's submarine. The novel is then set almost entirely aboard Nautilus and follows in a rather episodic manner, the adventures of the ship and the wonderment that Arronax experiences along the way. There are encounters with unusual sea creatures, explorations of shipwrecks, a visit to Atlantis, and a gripping sequence when the vessel finds itself trapped under the Antarctic ice. 

The enigmatic Captain Nemo and his mute, nameless crew are a mystery to Arronax and his reader, and I liked that there was no easy (or any!) explanation as to Nemo's background or why he has chosen to renounce the physical world for a life under the seas. I enjoyed the Nautilus' adventures, and found the descriptions of life under the waves fascinating, in much the same way as Moby Dick was interesting in it's depiction of the life and times of whales. A pleasure to read then, and a cracking adventure. I look forward to more of the Classic Adventures series.