Last night -- or rather in the wee hours of this morning -- I reread George Orwell's book Animal Farm for about the fourth time since high school; and all I can say is:
Read.
This.
Book.
It's eerily prophetic.
I add that Orwell also wrote 1984 which I haven't read for many years (of which more below) and could have (should have) penned an essay for the book The God That Failed, which contains an essay by Arthur Koestler about Soviet Communism. Koestler also wrote a novel Darkness at Noon about the Soviet system, which ranks up there with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. If your taste runs to hefty tomes, read The Gulag Archipelago, all three volumes. I have read it three times.
Re 1984: the Ruler is called "Big Brother," which in Russian is "Veliky Brat,'" which is how Russia referred to itself vis-à-vis Ukraine. And we know - or definitely should! - how Russia treated Ukraine, both under the Tsars and the Soviets.
This stuff should make the average American very afraid for our country.
No comments:
Post a Comment