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Animal Farm.
Reading has always been a favourite pass time, very seldom do I dislike a book I have read! But Animal Farm, has to be the worse. Had to read in high school in two separate years, couldn't finish it either time. Honestly I had night mares.
Facebook User about 1 year ago
This book would have my worse book, lowest rating ever, & I think the only book I never finished reading!
Gai
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a brilliant work of modern fable. Of course, in an era when the average college student doesn't realize Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is not, in fact, actually recommending a diet of Irish babies, we should probably reserve this for only the brighter sixth-graders on our gift lists.
Anonymous User about 1 year agotoo true.
Rachel Cantzler about 1 year agoJeez Gai,
Facebook User about 1 year agoAre you serious ?
This book is an all time classic.
It is a classic. A very pithy comment on human nature; beautifully concise yet cuts right to the bone. I teach it every year to Senior students through choice not compulsion and provides an analogy for so much of what is still happening in the world today. I love it when a student recognizes the metaphor and can link it to current global events.
Facebook User about 1 year agoI read this book for the first time in eighth grade and I understood it then. It is an incredibly strong critique of all that is wrong with the practice of communism, and I find it difficult to see how anyone could dislike the book unless they simply failed to understand it.
Jonathan Plotner about 1 year agoAnimal Farm is a great book condemning in a prefect allegory the promise yet betrayal of the Russian Revolution and the resulting totalitarian Soviet Stalinism that followed. Orwell was not nessicarly opposed to Communism as he remained a Socialist to his dying day but he turned against the Comintern and Communist party when he realized its anti-revolutionary nature and anti-democratic slavish devotion to Soviet Union foreign policy.
Orwell's excellent book- Homage to Catalonia- captures this change in Orwell's ideological world view prefectly. It was written while Orwell was fighting in the Spanish Civil War with the Trotskyist Communist POUM finding himself and his militia at odds with the Stalinist Communist dominated Republic government who were allied with liberals against revolutionary anarchists and POUMist like Orwell himself.
Aiden Wiechuła about 1 year agoNightmares?
I didn't think it was all that scary, though that crazy Snowball guy with his visions of utopia and whatnot is kind of worrisome.
Facebook User about 1 year agoI remember screaming in horror as I was reading and the pigs walked around the corner of the barn on two legs. I think Orwell's gift, and what has made his work timeless, is his ability to transform modern events into metaphorical, allegorical tales that are chilling in the telling and painful in their reflection of the truth.
Facebook User about 1 year agoWhile Orwell's target in this and in the equally great 1984 was specifically soviet totalitarianism (and not communism per se), I have a view that as with all great literature it deals with human truths and will therefore be timeless.
That said, we don't live in a world where we are constantly at war with a demonised enemy, where there is constant surveillance, where our leaders manipulate the media to tell their own version of events, and where popular entertainment churns out the lowest common denominator.
Do we ?
Peter Harris about 1 year agoPart of what makes this such a great book is that it is applicable to more than just the era in which it was written. Many events in this book have parallels to current events. Such as putting a "spin" on events to reflect better on those in power; that's still very relevant today- the US isn't in Iraq looking for biological weapons that (oops!) aren't there, we're fighting for Iraqi freedom!
Facebook User about 1 year agoMaybe it is scary to think about such things, but I think it's scarier that people would willfully remain ignorant.
We are a product of our environment, and now we are the mushrooms the government wants us to be, completely ignorant and afraid of them and always seeking their protection. Animal Farm is a great great great book, everyone should read it. I agree with Marissa, it isn't only relevant to its era, it relates to many others. Definitely one of my favorites.
Meagan Denos about 1 year agoYes Peter, we do. What more ample warning do we need? It was decades early, and still Orwell's warning falls on the deaf ears sheep-like approximations of Americans. Welcome.
Marty Cronk about 1 year agoYes we do! :)
Sydney Alfred Guillaume Charest about 1 year agoI actually think that Orwell has succeeded if he has given you nightmares. This book is not some pretty little piggy pastoral, it is a heavy totalitarian allegory that is meant to worry us. We are, even in the so-called democratic West, complacent in the face of advertising slogans that daily distort words and their meanings to compel us to buy crap, or repel us from our very selves by dint of making us feel inferior to others and some unattainable ideal of perfection. And Orwell was merely discussing the then spectre of Communism taken to its extremest form, so if it still applies to us and scares us today...be afraid, be very afraid!!
Anonymous User about 1 year agoThe book was unbeleivably good, satiristic and its no wonder he had to go to hell and back to get it published during that time period. I mean really, who wants to publish a book which undermines the entire polital/socioeconomic scene of our greatest allies during the Second World War. The ignorance of the characters really reminds me of the current situation of our country. To many live in a state of complete (to put it in the words of Cicero) "inertiae nequitiaeque" "idle worthlessness" as far as their cognitive capabilities.
T.J. Anderson about 1 year agoI had to read this freshman year. And I know people will yell at me, but I didn't enjoy it one bit. It is a classic, but I just didnn't like it. sorry people.
Melissa Snyder about 1 year agoof course it gave you nightmares! the russian revolution was not a happy time- i mean, stalin was even worse than hitler! if you picked up this book thinking it would be a silly story about talking animals, then of course you're upset. this book is the definition of good symbolism, and is a brilliant work. if you don't like books that make you sad, try reading "dick and jane". because the world isn't happy, and neither is this amazing book.
Allegra Pomeroy about 1 year agoI don't think you meant to, but you just killed Peter's sarcasm.
Facebook User about 1 year agoGeorge Orwell is all about paranoia, Animal Farm is an illustration of revolution, totalinarianism, and inevitable corruption of any government--the end is a very interseting illustration of this. If politics are not your ideal reading material, then I can understand your not liking this book. But for those who find interest in politics, this book is a great illustration of totalitarianism and government corruption.
Gabby DeMarre about 1 year ago