June's Well-Read Weekend
Join this WRW June 14th & 15th
The Weekenders voted and this month we will be reading…
Animal Farm by George Orwell
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For next month, we will be voting between two summer-set classic reads:
Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun and J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country.
A Satirical Classic
Initially difficult to publish due to its political satirization, Animal Farm is a fable warning of the dangers of communism and mirroring events of the Russian revolution. The story takes place on a farm when the pigs have decided to take on the farmer. What will result after the animals revolt? In what a state will the farm remain?
Get Your Copy
You can find this book for purchase in print or online for free here.
You can also find it in audio form here for free.
Discussing the Book
Be sure to return to this post once you’re done reading and comment below to get the discussion started. Share your favorite quotes, the parts that spoke to you, or the elements that stood out. Did the book remind you of other classics or philosophies, history, works of art, or other curiosities? Did the story change you? Tell us below!
Your Well-Read Weekend starts June 14th.
In preparing to read, I came across an introduction from a high school English teacher who said it was his practice to not mention any context to the story prior to reading, that he first allowed the fable to speak for itself before having students draw connections to what characters represent who. I thought this was an interesting approach and given my complete ignorance of communism and soviet Russia, I decided to approach it in the same way. Though I do hope to brush up on the historical context more in the coming weeks. If anyone has recommendations, please share.
I do think that this approach made the fable itself more enjoyable for me. Though I knew how the story would end I still found myself shocked by the constant shift of the pigs from plotting to get rid of the farmer to becoming the farmer. I would often gasp and add little commentary to my husband "you won't believe what the pigs just did" The final line rung in my head for a while afterwards “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” It was so unsettling, though I knew it was coming. It left me wanting resolution, but knowing there was none, it left me wanting to learn about this terrible real life event. I've spent more time than I expected trying to process it all, but I still haven't come to any conclusions. I look forward to hearing what others thought.
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