“On Animal Farm”
An introduction by Hitchens for a 2010 edition of Orwell’s
book. A nice, clear walk through the book from three perspectives: historical
context (WWII era Stalinist USSR), the challenges in getting published and “its
enduring relevance today”. Hitchens
sums up Orwell’s Trotskyite argument against Stalinism by quoting from the
book: “Probably the best-known sentence from the novel is the negation by the
pigs of the original slogan that ‘All Animals Are Equal’ by the addition of the
afterthought that ‘Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.’”
Hitchens writes a fantastic summary of the book: “…the
action approximates to the fate of the 1917 generation in Russia. Thus the
grand revolutionary scheme of the veteran boar Old Major (Karl Marx) is at
first enthusiastically adopted by almost all creatures, leading to the
overthrow of Farmer Jones (the Tsar), the defeat of the other farmers who come
to his aid (the now-forgotten Western invasions of Russia in 1918– 19), and the
setting up of a new model state. In a short time, the more ruthless and
intelligent creatures— naturally enough the pigs— have the other animals under
their dictatorship and are living like aristocrats. Inevitably, the pigs
argue among themselves. The social forces represented by different animals are
easily recognizable— Boxer the noble horse as the embodiment of the working
class, Moses the raven as the Russian Orthodox Church— as are the identifiable
individuals played by different pigs. The rivalry between Napoleon (Stalin) and
Snowball (Trotsky) ends with Snowball’s exile and the subsequent attempt to
erase him from the memory of the farm. Stalin had the exiled Trotsky murdered
in Mexico less than three years before Orwell began work on the book.”
New learning: George Orwell was the first person to use the
phrase “cold war” in print.
New word: samizdat = clandestine publishing of banned
material, especially in the former Soviet republics and Soviet dominated
Eastern Europe.
Interesting Ralph Steadman Cover (from spanish version = Rebellion on the Farm)
No comments:
Post a Comment