Not a very good picture but the best of six attempts, after which I decided it would have to do.
No prizes for guessing this was Animal Farm. It wasn't necessarily next on my list to read but like Frankenstein and The Art of War it came up on Audible's free to members list, bundled together with 1984, which is also on the poster but which I won't tackle quite yet.
I was wary of reading this because I read it as a teenager and found it terribly upsetting, but it wasn't nearly so bad this time round. In part because I knew what was coming, in part because it was read in a light tone (Stephen Fry doing a splendid job, not a phrase that falls from my fingers lightly but credit where it's due) which pointed up the satire more than my teenage brain would have known to do, and partly and sadly because I am no longer surprised at the terrible things people do in the name of ideology which profit themselves and their cronies.
Did I enjoy it? Actually yes I did. I wouldn't ever have re-read it without the prompt from the poster but I'm glad it was on there.
We are going away for few days tomorrow so no blogging for a bit, but the good news is that there will be lots to write about when I get back.
I had to teach it for GCSE for a number of years, and it was the book that the greatest number of students picked as their favourite on the course every time. I think it appealed to a lot of them when they realised there was more to it than the surface story. As one lad said, “It made me feel clever, miss, because I could see the real stuff as well as the animals.” The ending in particular sparked some lengthy discussions.
ReplyDeleteIn my Eng Lit 'O'level we studied Wuthering Heights as our set book. The exam questions on the paper in the WH section were horrid. So I answered the Animal Farm section NEVER HAVING READ THE BOOK. Questions were easy. I got an A !!
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