Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present.” Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell’s novel remains an urgent call for the individual willing to speak truth to power. Lionel Trilling said of Orwell’s masterpiece “ 1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”- The New Yorker
“Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. With extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity, George Orwell’s 1984 takes on new life in this hardcover edition.
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