My Fav Books – 7

The Soviet Union realized the potential of this book, so they Banned it. The Americans thought of it as a children’s book so included it as the children’s textbook in schools. This gem by George Orwell has been praised and criticized throughout the world.

On the surface this book is just 80 pages long, a simple story of various animals in an animal farm rebelling for their freedom and expelling the owner out of the farm, and creating their own rules of living. And when we go deep down in its meaning, it gets very days as supposed to be a children’s novel. This book is Orwell’s mock to the current society for its ways of government.

The most famous line from this book is: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. And its meaning can be only understood after reading the story.

Like in the earlier post of mine titled “MEANING LESS BOOKS ARE MOST VALUABLE”, this is the book whose understand will come to one according to one’s age and maturity.

Quoting a review from GoodReads:

Funnily enough, i read this book as a child and thought that it really WAS about animals. I remember thinking, Evil Pigs, I’m glad you’re bacon in MY world, and Poor Hardworking Horsies, come live on my farm instead. You can have all the hay and makopa you want (sadly, no apples, tropical climate).

I reread it after education spoiled my natural inclinations for fast and absolute punishment of evildoers and eternal rewards for the good. I do find it pleasantly strange that these animals are symbols for political stereotypes and yet people still appear in the book. Isn’t that CRAZY? That’s literary perversion in a class all its own.

I’m thankful i read this in my formative years, before I had all this intellectual baggage (emphasis on baggage, piano on the intellect), because I got to appreciate it like a child would, almost like the way I appreciated Charlotte’s Web. To me, back then, it was just another story about animals, albeit a wordy one, with no pictures.

Which is probably why I still experience a certain righteous thrill when eating crispy bacon.

~ Tessa De Guzman

P.S: Do you know that this world-famous writer was actually born in Motihari, Bihar. Just 30 kms away from where I currently live. Last month, I visited his birthplace when I went to meet my relatives there. The condition of His memorial house is really worse, there was a statue of him there which is now missing, only a broken house with a pillar with his name and details are inscribed there.

#TheWriteChoice