Although very familiar with both Animal Farm and 1984, I’m not sure I’ve ever read either. Stephen Fry narrated them brilliantly. 1984 a bit of a bad choice in the midst of petrol shortages in UK! I’m sure such a bleak future can be avoided though

Doua romane clasice. Exista unele romane care vor ramane intodeauna de actualitate.

1984: Много јача од Животињске фарме!
-из едиције најкраћи могући утисци, мрзи ме да пишем и делимично не знам шта бих све рекла након овога овде-

"Animal Farm" tells the simple and tragic story of what happens when the oppressed farm animals rebel, drive out Mr. Jones, the farmer, and attempt to rule the farm themselves, on an equal basis. What the animals seem to have aimed at was a utopian sort of communism, where each would work according to his capacity, respecting the needs of others. The venture failed, and "Animal Farm" ended up being a dictatorship of pigs, who were the brightest, and most idle of the animals. Napoleon literally becomes their god .

Orwell's mastery lies in his presentation of the horrors of totalitarian regimes, and his analysis of communism put to practice, through satire and simple story-telling. You understand the ruthless ruling policy of the pigs when then send sick Horse ( most hardworking and ever loyal to Napoleon ) to slaughterhouse , making an excuse of sending him to hospital for his betterment . Well everyone is informed later that Napoleon spent a lot of money on his treatment but the horse could not survive .

Most amazing thing is how the pigs alter the "Seven Commandments" , I thoroughly enjoyed reading this . I read it a year ago when I was in my high school .

I have finally read 1984. It just took me a few years to pick it up. My rating is leaning more toward 3.5 more than 3.

I enjoyed the book. I really don't know how to express my feelings about it yet. But I did enjoyed it.

I’m rating this as just 1984 so I can put down I read two books lol

It is difficult to rate a novel which is incomplete. This version if Animal Farm and 1984 does not contain the full versions of either book. Animal Farm has only the first 10 chapters and ends abruptly on page 86. 1984 has only the first 3 sections and repeats itself.
This is more a sampling of Orwells Classics rather than a complete read.
If you want to read the full novel. Don't purchase this one

Reread this after years and years passed. Crazy to see the alikeness this stories plot is to current day events in politics.

“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”


Joseph Stalin

In Animal Farm George Orwell reenacted the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, Major, Napoleon, Snowball, Jones, and Frederick incarnating Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Tsar Nicolas II and Hitler. But through the fable, Orwell critiques not only communism but also any corruption of power, leaders highlighting real or imagined threats to instill fear in followers and solidify power.


Leon Trotsky

As often repeated throughout history, people out of fear often would submit to the state’s unchecked power in exchange for security real or imagined. In the end, Napoleon exploited the animals just as Farmer Jones previously had and even emulated humans when he gave a dinner to neighboring farmers, who represented the leaders of other nations and would gladly play poker with the tyrant as long as they can benefit from the friendship.

Animal Farm is a lighthearted fable for a serious subject.

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Under Big Brother’s omniscient eyes, Winston Smith tried to ignite his only freedom, the freedom to believe in “obvious” truths, but by the novel’s end, at the café Winston was unsure what two plus two would make, a sign that O’Brien had successfully reintegrated a “lost soul” and Winston had become like his friends and neighbors, unable to question and thus unable to revolt. What sends shivers down our spines is not the various tortures O’Brien performed, but after these tortures, Winston’s total capitulation¾mind, body, and soul¾to Big Brother. When the mind kowtows to external authority and ceases to reflect and question, then the individual had successfully metamorphosed into a machine.


Oceania Society

Winston, by editing previous documents to conform to Oceana’s present position, such as whether Eurasia is friend or foe, had helped the regime’s guardians, who like O’Brien believed “who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past,” mold the citizens’ minds. But Oceana, like other totalitarian regimes, also turned to the indispensable tool, fear, to chisel its citizens’ minds and hearts to its agenda’s shape and form. To stimulate fear and rouse its citizens to a common cause, it would when necessary create fathom enemies, either Eurasia or Eastasia, even though these totalitarian regimes also had similar ideologies, or rather, like Oceana, no ideologies.

Under 1984’s dystopian sky, Winston must bow, not only because of Big Brother’s overwhelming power and presence, but also because of Winston’s inability to form any ideologies. Even though he wanted to think freely, he lacked the training and thus the analytical mind to counter O’Brien’s offenses. In the end, his mind followed the path of least resistance.

Orwell’s 1984 is a dark apocalypse of sub-human society where homo-sapiens had replaced machines to operate an efficient hierarchy, an apocalypse which any people would usher wherever and whenever they ceased to question “intuitively obvious truths.”



George Orwell

Well don't finish the book before going to bed - that's for sure. Overall I did not expect that kind of story. Some of the events in the book will require more thinking to figure out why exactly were they in the book. And now i can see why the phrase "1984 supposed to be a warning not a guide" is so famous.

Celebrity Death Match tournament versus Macbeth.
In a galaxy that's this one and today only most people don't realize it because it scrolls on the screen in teeny tiny neon green letters with a sterile surgical instrumental backdrop. Or CNN. Once upon a time that's today. There was a MAN and a Big Brother and they were one and the same. What about the sisters?
"You could be big brother, you know. People always ask who the MAN is supposed to be. You're a man, aren't you? Although it has been some time since you were able to get it up... I do know you're keeping me down with your accepted level of mediocrity."
Macbeth was tired after a long day of omitting the thous and thys from the Dougie Howser's Dictionary. His wife reported his mouth breathing coworker and he was a shoo-in for the promotion of updating each and every one of Shakespeare's plays into a high school comedy for the ABC Big Brother telescreens. Why couldn't she let him be well enough alone? Why did they have to move up one more spot on the assembly line?
"I've enrolled you into the adopt a brother program. To be a Big Brother you must be a brother."
"But that's for perverts!"
It was useless to argue. The two minutes of hate was over and it wouldn't do to have a tiff with his wife that couldn't be passed off as mandatory aggression. Macbeth did not want to argue with his wife. To end it meant doing something.
The girl half of the Macbeth team had assigned herself another job. "It's not like I'm not working for us too, you know. I have to hit on that duffer Winston. Do you think that I like suggesting power behind the curtain to feeble men who cannot live with themselves as impotence personified?"
"Duffer is out of the accepted lingo, as is impotence. How about loser?" Offered the Macbeth with a penis. Lady Macbeth wanted Macbeth to think for himself, so long as he was thinking what she wanted him to think. Was that too much to ask? The use of if-you-don't-already-know-then-I-can't-tell-you worked wonders on the thoughtpolice. They were helpless against it.
"If no one knows who Big Brother really is then why can't it be you?"
"You is out of the dictionary. How about they?"
"That's my point! Who is they? Why can't they be me?"
Macbeth did not understand what his wife was saying. He had not the words to understand it. He had worked all day to take those words away from himself. Work and the telescreen. Who had room for anything else?
"Are you a man?"
Macbeth did not know.
"What do I want to be married to this man for? I don't know what I want and the thoughtpolice cannot tell me what that is. I know that."
What was that feeling? The sense of things that were already bad getting a lot worse. It happened more frequently than anything touching on how to dust off the twenty dollar words no one could afford anymore (after all, they were not on the rations list) to describe the other range of experience and emotions. Ambition? Voided out. Don't look to see the man behind the curtain.
"Um, honey, you left the telescreen on, didn't you?"
"No, they did."

Win: 1984

Aninal Farm was entertaining until I kept on finding the similarities with Venezuela. It was like the history of the last 15-20 years of the country told in the form of a fable and written decades earlier.

1984: this was worse than watching a horror movie (which I hate) because while in a movie I'm always aware it's fiction, the book kept on confusing me making me feel I was actually going through a factual piece. Only specific elements got me out of it. The biggest impressions happened while reading "The Book" in part 2 and feeling like I was reading history of the world. You realize we live in a scary and predictable world when it can get mixed up with a fiction book from more than half a century ago.

P.S. What a wonderful analysis of the language he makes in the Appendix describing Newspeak. The structure, the sounds, the meanings... it only makes me want to read more of everything and question, think, break rules, widen my vocabulary. Anything that takes me in the opposite direction of becoming an Ingsoc kind of...thinker?