The Mistress of Lilliput

by Alison Fell

While Swift may have chosen to overlook the travails of Lemuel Gulliver's wife Mary, Alison Fell imagines a life for her, and takes us on an adventure of her own.

Genres: Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Alison Fell is a Scottish poet and novelist who lives in London.

Reviews

[Nihan D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masallarda okuyarak büyüdüğümüz prensler, macera tutkunu kahramanlar, Tanrılar, küçüklüğümüzden beri hayranlığımızı kazanmıştır. Gulliver'de bu kahramanlardan biri. Keşfettiği ülkeler, cüceler ve devlerin o fantastik dünyası benim çok sevdiğim hikayelerden biridir.

Tabi büyüdükçe olayların başka bir yönü olduğunu daha fark ediyoruz. Mesela Gulliver'in bir karısı olsa, O maceradan maceraya koşarken çocukları kendi büyütmek zorunda kalsa, senelerce görmediği kocasını bulmak için her şeyi göze alıp gemiyle denizlere açılmış olsa?

İşte Mary'nin hikayesi bunlardan ibaret. Kendisine dokunmasını istediğinde kocasının ayıplayan gözleriyle karşılaşan bir kadın o. Ailesi ve sonra da kocası tarafından sürekli ezik konumuna düşürüldüğü için özgüvenini kaybetmiş bir kadın. Bunlara rağmen gözünü karartıp bilmediği ülkelere arayışa gidiyor ve sonunda kocasını bulduğunda eline geçen ne oluyor?

Kitabı okuyup görmeniz daha iyi olacaktır.

Bir adam kendisini bir gemiye atıp uzak ülkelere yola çıktığında düşündüğü sadece özgürlük olurken, bir kadın bunu yaptığında aklı geride bıraktığı çocuklarında ve evinde olur.

Sanırım bir erkek ve bir kadın arasındaki en büyük fark bu.

Kitabın dilini sevdim, ironik bir dille anlatılıyor hikaye. Mary'nin başına gelenlere çok üzüldüm. Hele cüceler ülkesinde olanlar... Sapık cüceler!

Gulliver'de bencil şovenistin tekiymiş!

[Sue Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful - Mrs Gulliver's travels to find her missing husband

Mrs Gulliver misses her husband, and bravely decides to undertake the same journey as his, in the hopes that she will meet up with him again.

She endures hardships, and interesting adventures on her journey. Like him, she is tethered to the ground by the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput. They are worried that she is not only lonely, but also frustrated, and there are some highly amusing scenes as they do their best to counteract these perceived problems.

This book was a real feel-good treat - I really enjoyed it

[Hauntie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quite strange. And kinky in one rather surprising section -- to the point of gross, really. I wasn't expecting that at all. The author tries to give the book an 'old-timey' feel with a very posturing sort of prose, overwrought and overlengthy in many places. Still, I finished it and found it kind of diverting. Not a must-read, not even a great read, but kind of funny and I bet fans of Gulliver's Travels [or someone who read it more recently than I] would find it amusing.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read "Gulliver's Travels" both helps and hurt me with this book. I could understand the parts of Swift that the author played off of but they paled in comparison, I'm afraid. A nice little intellectual exercise but not much more.

[Gizem Karagöz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Konusu ilgi çekiciydi başta, ama bitirmem epey zaman aldı.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in November 1999.

In something of the manner of John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor, The Mistress of Lilliput is a twentieth century novel masquerading as an eighteenth century one. It is written in a pastiche of the style of many novels of the period, though it is informed and driven by modern concerns (particularly with reference to the role of the sexes). The major influence is of course Jonathan Swift, though Lawrence Sterne and Henry Fielding are also important, the former explicitly quoted at one point.

The Mistress of Lilliput tells the story of Mary Butler, the wife of Lemuel Gulliver of Gulliver's Travels. An ardent wife, who expected bliss from married life, she was rather unhappy when her husband announced that he was to leave on a voyage that would take him from her for several years. Then she receives the news of the loss of his ship, but believes that Lemuel continues to live; and then he returns, rewarding her faithfulness with revulsion, for she to him is a brute Yahoo. To find that he prefers to spend his time in the stables with the horses (and Fell makes more specific hints of miscegenation than Swift does) is a bitter blow, only to be followed by another when he runs off again, to set out on another voyage.

At last Mary has had enough, and so she herself takes ship for the South Seas, aiming to find her husband and to get him to return to her. The main part of the book tells of her adventures and discoveries, both about herself and her relationship with her husband.

The message of the novel is overtly feminist (to do with the fulfilment of women in a patriarchal society), yet Fell manages to avoid polemic. The point is made principally through the general outlines of the plot, but it is not allowed to stand in the way of the characterisation or the narrative flow; it is never insisted upon. To do this well is one of the most difficult feats in fiction writing, and Fell has certainly achieved it.

[Netty · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slog. Tedious and bizarre. The writing style becomes a chore for very little storyline. I hate to leave a book unread, but my progress was slow and reluctant.

[Jill Lamond · Rating 2 out of 5]

A novel told from the point of view of a doll - how could that fail? As it happens, easily. This is the tale of Mary Gulliver going off to look for her husband. The style of the book is very much that of an 18th century novel and it all gets a little wearing after a while. Basically the story just dragged on and failed to engage.

[Pippa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a big disappointment. The strawberry idea was so witty but the book was so not.