FUSED PETARD
A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA. By Jonathan Swift, with an Epilogue by Donald Mel. Johnson. Christopher Johnson. -T)YONALD writes, Christopher publishes. Are they relatives? If they are, it would account for so much. Let
s / us not condemn Donald unheard-"The direct question comes: Is it possible that, either by some freak of coincidence, or by some miracle of prognostication, the incoherent picture of Laputa and Balnibarbi, supposedly made up of disjointed fragments concerning the South Sea Bubble, Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Society, and the state of Irish agriculture in 1720, becomes a thoroughly integrated satire on Socialism two hundred years later? Is this suggestion too far-fetched? . . . it is surely not impossible for an extraordinary genius such as that of Swift’s (sic) to project itself forward for a longer period of time." It is a pity that we have not also Swift’s prognostication of his opinion of this use of his work. Donald Johnson uses this section of Swift’s great satire, Gulliver’s Travels, as a stick with which to beat the present Labour Government in Britain, The stick is a weak one, clumsily wielded. All that does the author credit is his genuine indignation. One good result of this publication-the only one I can think 9f-is that some new readers may be attracted by it to the pungent and. vigorous mind of Swift himself.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 473, 16 July 1948, Page 32
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226FUSED PETARD New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 473, 16 July 1948, Page 32
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