内容简介
《最经典英语文库:动物农场(英文版)》以隐喻的形式描写了革命发生的原因、革命过程中的背叛,以及革命本身的残酷。小说不属于人们所熟悉的蕴含教训的传统寓言,而是对现代政治神话的一种寓言式解构。“它是一部革命史,但它误入歧途,而且每一次偏离都那么有理由。”作者在1945年该书出版时如是说。
故事的情节大体如下:
一个农场的动物们不堪忍受主人的长期压迫,终于在先期觉醒的猪的带领下起来反抗,并共同努力赶走了农场主。之后它们建立起一个自我管理的家园,并奉行“所有动物一律平等”的原则。如果接下来的故事情节是农场中的动物从此“男耕女织”,过上了无忧无虑的幸福生活,那该小说就不足以使奥威尔成为文坛巨匠了。在奥威尔的安排下,两只领头的猪为了权力的争夺而互相倾轧。它们使尽浑身解数、尔虞我诈、步步为营。最后胜方宣布败方为叛徒、内奸,并予以镇压和驱逐;获胜的猪们逐渐侵占了其他动物的劳动成果,成为新的特权阶级。农场的戒律被修正为“有的动物较之其他动物更为平等”的荒谬字眼,动物们又回复到甚至远不如从前的悲凉境地……
作者简介
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903-21 January 1950) known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by clarity, intelligence and wit, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism. Considered perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism.
He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945), which together have sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century author. His book Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, is widely acclaimed, as are his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture. In 2008, The Times ranked him second on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Orwell's work continues to influence popular and political culture, and the term Orwellian-descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices has entered the language together with several of his neologisms, including Cold War, Big Brother, thought police, doublethink, and thoughtcrime.
内页插图
目录
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
精彩书摘
Before long the other animals began to arrive and make themselves comfortable after their different fashions. First came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher, and then the pigs, who settled down in the straw immediately in front of the platform. The hens perched themselves on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs
and began to chew the cud. The two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very
slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great care lest there should be some small animal
concealed in the straw. Clover was a stout motherly mare approaching middle life, who had never quite got her figure back after her fourth foal. Boxer was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together. A white stripe down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work. After the horses came Muriel, the white goat, and Benjamin, the donkey. Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered. He seldom talked, and when he- did, it was usually to make some cyrucal remark-for instance, he would say that God had given him a tail to keep the fiies off, but that
he would sooner have had no tail and no fiies. Alone among the animals on the farm he never laughed. If asked why, he would say that he saw nothing to laughat.
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