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List Price: 13
Our Price: $12.00
Product Details
| Shipping Weight: |
0.50 |
| Author(s): |
George Orwell |
| Vendor: |
HARCOURT |
| Publisher: |
Plume |
| Published: |
06 May, 2003 |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0452284244 |
| Store Code: |
2944 |
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Description: Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson
Genre: Satire; Literature: Classics; Fiction; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Totalitarianism; Political fiction; Classics; Fiction / Classics; Fables; Literary; Domestic animals;
Average Review: 4.5 stars
Review: Should Have Read This Long Ago : As the victim of a poor education system based on nationalism and religious intolerance, it wasn't until a foreign colleague gave me this book as a gift did it dawn on me what a wonderful piece of literature I had missed out on all these years. "Animal Farm" is basically a story about revolution and how the best intentions can go horribly wrong due to the dictatorial tendencies of those in power. The only difference is, all the main characters are animals and the setting is on an English farm. It tells of how the animals overthrow the human owner and try to run the farm themselves in the interest of freedom from tyranny. Things slowly start to change as a particular group of animals assume power at the expense of all the others. The allegorization to some modern governments and institutions is unmistakable and quite sobering. The story itself is not long and can easily be read in one sitting. This particular edition also features Orwell's previously unpublished preface and one he wrote for the Ukranian translation of this book. A long introduction by Malcolm Bradbury (emeritus professor of American studies) and a note on the text by Peter Davidson (research professor of English) explain some of the motives behind the book and a little background information on Orwell (i.e. Eric Blair) himself. Overall, an excellent and compelling story that I simply could not put down.
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