I am going to skip all talk of allegories to Communist Russia because I feel like it's been beaten to death by common knowledge, sparknotes, and my 9th grade English teacher. So, what is left to talk about? In my opinion, not much. I'm exhausted and this book did not interest me in the slightest, so I'll keep it brief.
1) Title: Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. WHAT? A fairy story? I'm guessing Orwell meant fable or folk tale or something because there was no fairies, magic spells, etc. Some fairy tales are indeed gruesome, but I'd rather read my (nonexistent) children those than Animal Farm.
2) I did appreciate the last chapter, when after many years none of the new animals understood the procession by the boar's skull and had no idea about what the purposes of the old rituals were. So often histories get lost so that the original meaning is no longer understood. I think that's somewhat of a universal. After many years, it's to be expected that meanings get transposed and altered.
3) There is a creepy Animal Farm animated movie that I found on youtube while I was looking for the picture of the book shown above. I watched 10 minutes of it and was extremely creeped out. The fact that an animated movie exists for this, though, means two things: a) that people are willing to subject themselves to this story in their spare time, and b) children are probably watching it because it's animated. AHHHH!!!! (The part where they're supposed to be singing "Beasts of England" is extremely weird...everyone just starts making noise in strange rhythms).
So...not my first choice. Definitely toward the bottom of my list. Would not recommend, etc. Next up: The Two Towers (unless this weekend involves a lot of driving, which it very well might, in which case it might be the first in the Narnia series, the Magician's Nephew). Cheers!
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