I've attempted to get into Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub twice now, and I just can't do it. The verbiage is too difficult and because the allusions he's making are so far in the past and unknown to me, it's pretty damn impossible for me to grasp what he's talking about at any given time...save the general story of the three brothers.
I fell back on reading the cliff notes first to identify which chapters seemed approachable, and then used that to inform what I read as I went. When clearly explained, I see that Swift is making clever critiques on social and political issues of the day but just from strictly reading on my own, it was neither enjoyable or comprehensible. I wonder if in its time it was considered accessible or "intelligent". If it was the former, it's interesting to see how vast the differences in writing and parody have come.
