Hello Charlie!
In order to celebrate this wonderful thing called back-to-school, I wanted to talk to you about one of my summer readings.
Just a small clarification, this article isn't a book review so I won't have a very deep approach, just enough to make you buy this book ( at Book In Bar obviously).
So let me introduce «Animal Farm» by George Orwell.
First published in 1945, Orwell first called his book « Animal Farm: A Fairy Story».
The story begins with a meeting organized by Old Major, a prize -winning boar, who shares with the farm's animal his thoughts about their current situation. Old Major denounces Mr.Jones, the owner of the Manor Farm, guilty for their miserable and laborious life, and incites the animals to rebel against humans and to take control of the farm.
A few days after his speech Old Major dies, but his ideal of a rebellion doesn't and a few months after the animals, under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, take over the Manor Farm, hence renamed Animal Farm.
But under this aspect of fable is hidden a satire on the Russian Revolution under the leadership of Staline.
Indeed, if at the beginning the dream of Old Major approaches the communist ideal of Karl Marx, Orwell narrates the history of a revolution with corrupted ideals and power-hungry leader.
I hope these few words about this book gave you the urge to read it!
Johana
I remember reading this a while ago. I found the whole story pretty frightening...
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, it's a classic everyone should definitely read!
"Animal Farm" really IS a classic, and i hope I'll read it one day. BUT I'm writing this comment to share an anecdote I have from elementary school.
ReplyDeleteIn my school, they had a reading corner, which they often do, with little books to get kids to read, and there was a little part of this corner that was dedicated to English books. You know how it is, the little kid's magazines, picture books, short stories... all that jazz.
But I will never forget that in the middle of all of this pastel and cutsie covers, there was this book that was entirely red with black writing forming the image of a pig. Lo and behold it was "Animal farm". Only much later did I know what this book was about, and I am still giggling at this idea of this little kid that knows at least a little bit of english, and is very good for their age because they're like 8 to 11. And them, just picking this book from the shelf because its cover stands out a bit, and they start to read this book about this gruesome caricature of the communist revolution and stalinist regime. But they just thought it was going to be a short story about farm animals, and just basking in horror.
So yeah, animal farm, great book, 10/10 would recommend and I am still very confused about who thought it was a good idea to give this book into the tiny grubby hands of an 8 year old.
Seems like an interesting book, kind of funny thinking of a pig called Napoleon leading a rebellion against a farmer.
ReplyDeleteI've actually read this book and i'm doing my book review on it. It's really interesting like you said to observe how George O. uses animals as a disguise to criticise and denounce a totalitarian regime. What's even more interesting is to see he used the same methods as Jean de la Fontaine who used fables with animals to criticise the court of the king and the king himself.
ReplyDelete