How to Read When You Are an Itsy-Bitsy Midget

… and the books are huge:

From Gulliver’s Travels:

They have had the art of printing, as well as the Chinese, time out of mind. But their libraries are not very large; for that of the King’s, which is reckoned the biggest, doth not amount to above a thousand volumes, placed in a gallery of twelve hundred foot long, from whence I had the liberty to borrow what books I pleased. The Queen’s joiner had contrived in one of Glumdalclitch’s rooms a kind of wooden machine five and twenty foot high, formed like a standing ladder; the steps were each fifty foot long. It was indeed a moveable pair of stairs, the lowest end placed at ten foot distance from the wall of the chamber. The book I had a mind to read was put up leaning against the wall. I first mounted to the upper step of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book, began at the top of the page, and so walking to the right and left about eight or ten paces, according to the length of the lines, till I had gotten a little below the level of my eyes, and then descending gradually till I came to the bottom; after which I mounted again, and began the other page in the same manner, and so turned over the leaf, which I could easily do with both my hands, for it was as thick and stiff as a pasteboard, and in the largest folios not above eighteen or twenty foot long.

I can just so picture that.

I’m having so much fun reading this book right now. I’ll post more excerpts when I’m done. The chapters where Gulliver describes the government of his own country to the giant King – and the King shows absolute horror at how barbaric they are – especially in regards to politics – and Gulliver has actually felt, in his life, that his own kingdom of England is the most enlightened on the planet … well, you can see what Swift is getting at there. The chapters are vicious. Vicious satire.

Gulliver has almost escaped from Brobdingnag now. His floating box in the ocean has been rescued by a ship.

Then I’ll be on to his third voyage, in Part III of the book.