内容简介
Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of aworkers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Manand the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a BookReport About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun toread.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with SovietCommunism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, bothan engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When thedowntrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human masterand take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivistzeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, andfor one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals'Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on thebarn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wearclothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature.Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and thetwo-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, thepigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of theirintelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power."We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation ofthe farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over yourwelfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat thoseapples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution,cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violenceand greed, the common animals are once again left hungry andexhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm.Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remainsunmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all tohis comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for thepigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given thehistory of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an airof prophecy. --Joyce Thompson