书名: Animal Farm 动物庄园

作者：George Orwell 乔治·奥威尔

出版社: Signet Classics

出版时间：1996

语种： 英文

ISBN：9780451526342

商品尺寸: 10.8 x 1.2 x 19.2 cm

包装：平装

页数：176

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. (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. 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. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson

From Library Journal

This 50th-anniversary commemorative edition of Orwell's masterpiece is lavishly illustrated by Ralph Steadman. In addition, it contains Orwell's proposed introduction to the English-language version as well as his preface to the Ukrainian text. Though all editions of Animal Farm are equal, this one is more equal than others.

Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. 

一个农庄的动物不堪人类主人的压迫，在猪的带领下起来反抗，赶走了农庄主，牲畜们实现了“当家作主”的愿望，农场更名为“动物庄园”，奉行“所有动物一律平等”；之后，两只处于领导地位的猪为了权力而互相倾轧，胜利者一方宣布另一方是叛徒、内奸。此后，获取了领导权的猪拥有了越来越大的权力，成为新的特权阶级；动物们稍有不满，便会招致血腥的清洗：农庄的理想被修正为“有的动物较之其他动物更为平等”，动物们又恢复到从前的悲惨状况。

农场里的一头猪老少校（Old Major）在提出了“人类剥削牲畜，牲畜须革命”的理论之后死去，若干天后，农场里掀起了一场由猪领导的革命，原来的剥削者——农场主斯密斯被赶走，牲畜们实现了“当家作主”的愿望，尝到了革命果实的甘美，农场更名为“动物庄园”并且制定了庄园的宪法──七诫。

但不久领导革命的猪们发生了分裂，一头猪雪球被宣布为革命的敌人，此后，获取了领导权的猪拿破仑拥有了越来越大的权力和越来越多的特别待遇，逐渐脱离了其他动物，最终蜕变成为和人类完全一样的牲畜剥削者，动物庄园的名字也被放弃。

乔治·奥威尔（George Orwell），本名埃里克·亚瑟·布莱尔（Eric Arthur Blair），英国作家。

他为后人留下了大量的作品，仅以《动物庄园》和《1984》而言，他的影响已经不可估量。以至于为了指代某些奥威尔所描述过的社会现象，现代英语中还专门有一个词叫“奥威尔现象（Orwellian）”。1950年1月，奥威尔病逝，享年46岁。

Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in India in 1903. He was educated at Eton, served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, and worked in Britain as a private tutor, schoolteacher, bookshop assistant and journalist. In 1936, Orwell went to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and was wounded. In 1938 he was admitted into a sanatorium and from then on was never fully fit. George Orwell died in London in 1950. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.