"Animal Farm"
George Orwell
Though this is a book generally assigned in high school, it somehow slipped by in my adolescence. Oh, that's right, it's because I chose my own reading lists and opted for philosophy, The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Anyway, I finally got around to it. It is a shortish work (one of the characteristics of many books I like), often funny with mercilessly dry remarks, and pretty good as a political satire. I guess by now just about everyone knows both the plot of the book and the intent of the author in writing it. I feel that, though the novel was specifically constructed around the Bolshevik revolution and the ensuing rise of Stalin, its themes--of the danger of totalitarianism, of a community accepting dictatorship with little real questioning--ring true for all eras, and not least our own. While madmen lead nations once again, the allegory of a self-inflicted downfall is a sobering one. A well written, thoughtful, and stimulating (in the sense of engaging our minds to compare the past with our present) novel.
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