Summary: The pigs kind of try to educate the other animals, but they're mostly too stupid. So instead they just scam/brainwash them. Also, they kidnap some puppies.
Commentary:
"Everyone worked according to his capacity." I think the vaguely reworded Marxist cliches are my favorite part of this book.
The pigs are clearly lying about not being able to make sugar/syrup, since they're now working on blacksmithing, carpentry, etc.
The sheep are too dump to learn the Seven Commandments, so they just Newspeak them into: "Four legs good, two legs bad."
Wings count as legs, because they're for moving.
Everyone in this book is either shitty or a moron. Except maybe the grumpy donkey.
By the 24th century, no one will disagree with Gene Rodenberry.
Summary: Marx-Lenin Major dies. Farmer Jones is chased off the farm. The animals destroy most of the "human stuff" and establish "the seven commandments." The pigs steal the milk after collecting it from the cows.
Commentary: I'm trying to decide if this exchange is intended to be ironic and/or critiquing or not. I've seen other versions of it (the above) played out as totally serious. Orwell is critiquing "bad socialism" in Animal Farm, but I think this part is intended to be "good socialism" (or at least neutral). Snowball will eventually (in about a chapter) become the "lesser villain" of the story, but I think we're still supposed to mostly agree with him now:
The stupidest questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare. The very first question she asked Snowball was: "Will there still be sugar after the Rebellion?"
"No," said Snowball firmly. "We have no means of making sugar on this farm. Besides, you do not need sugar. You will have all the oats and hay you want."
"And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane?" asked Mollie.
"Comrade," said Snowball, "those ribbons that you are so devoted to are the badge of slavery. Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than ribbons?"
Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.
Now, Snowball is probably right that not having sugar (or ribbons) are not worth being abused by a drunken farmer, but (in my utopia, at least) Mollie is allowed to wear ribbons or want sugar. It's also kind of odd that the animals can paint, work farm implements, etc., but can't figure out how to make some kind of syrup.
The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all animals went when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges. The animals hated Moses because he told tales and did no work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy Mountain, and the pigs had to argue very hard to persuade them that there was no such place.
LITERALLY THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES!
Here are the seven commandments, as painted on the side of the barn:
THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. 2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. 3. No animal shall wear clothes. 4. No animal shall sleep in a bed. 5. No animal shall drink alcohol. 6. No animal shall kill any other animal. 7. All animals are equal.
There are a couple mistakes, but Orwell renders them "correctly" here and then notes the mistake in another paragraph for some reason.
Commentary: I kind of ducked this last night, but Animal Farm is very heavy on the didactic. 1984 hides it until near the end, but Animal Farm isn't long enough for the luxury. That means that it basically starts with a fairly generic COMRADES! REVOLUTION! speech from Major (one of the pigs) about overthrowing humanity, which oppresses the animals.
It's not much to bite onto. A page or two listing all the animals on the farm, a speech, an iffy song. This is not a strong chapter one.
Couldn't find the right edition anywhere convenient :(
Bonus:
I'll run out of trailers eventually.
Summary: Animal Farm good, two intros bad.
Commentary: I'm using the Signet Classics edition, simply because that's the one I found at work. Since it's not a translation (or even a particularly annotated edition) I don't see how it makes much difference.
I got through the preface by Russel Baker (undated) and introduction by C.M. Woodhouse (1954)
The preface introduced the excellent essay I looked at the other day, but I don't know that I agree with its conclusions.
What all had in common was a depressing pessimism about the future. Like so much other writing of the era, they rested on the assumption that individuals were no match for the efficient new technology at the disposal of totalitarian politicians. [...] Well, here we are in that future that so many writers fifty years ago could only guess at, and what do we see? They were ludicrously wrong about the amazing efficiency with which totalitarians would destroy individualism.
I'm not sure which future Baker is living in, but it feels pretty hard to argue that we "won" against the 1984 future. Even people in "free" countries are under a state of constant surveillance, people are getting rounded up for social media posts, etc. We're not 100% lost, but it's hard to look at any other time in the last century that we've been much worse off in terms of freedom from various forms of totalitarianism on a global scale.
Woodhouse's intro is messy. It jumps around, seems to contradict itself, and is full of long awkward sentences. I considered going through with a highlighter and marking all of Orwell and Strunk's sins in it, but it didn't feel like it was worth the time.
Actual book tomorrow, hopefully a large improvement.
This might semi-retroactively become the first piece on a longer series on decision making. Pop quiz! What did Daedalus tell Icarus not to do?
"Fly too close to the sun" is the standard answer. But, the full quote is:
Then thus instructs his child: “My boy, take care To wing your course along the middle air: If low, the surges wet your flagging plumes; If high, the sun the melting wax consumes. Steer between both; nor to the northern skies, Nor south Orion, turn your giddy eyes, But follow me: let me before you lay Rules for the flight, and mark the pathless way.”
This is often used as an illustration of "the golden mean" saying that you should avoid excess, even in seemingly good things.
Would Orwell agree with Kevin's dialect? Why, or why not?
Summary: Lazy thinking leads to writing/speaking, which leads to lazy thinking.
Commentary:
Made it all of five pages into the intro to Animal Farm when I found a reference to it. Found it online and read it on my lunch break. I liked it. The basic thesis about lazy thinking and writing is very relevant to this blog. If you can't be bothered to actually organize your own thoughts, how can they be original?
Orwell gives five basic rules:
i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
It's funny how closely they parallel William Strunk's famous "Elementary Principals of Composition."
8. Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic 9. As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning 10. Use the active voice 11. Put statements in positive form 12. Use definite, specific, concrete language 13. Omit needless words 14. Avoid a succession of loose sentences 15. Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form 16. Keep related words together 17. In summaries, keep to one tense 18. Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end
The green highlights aren't explicitly in Orwell's rules, but are in line with things he says throughout the essay.
Animal Farm is on a reading challenge list I'm looking at. Since I did 1984 earlier this year, seemed like it might be fun to do the other. We'll see if I get around to Brave New World as well.
Summary: Be reasonably jealous of your kids in the country and their projects/industry.
Commentary:
208. Be not fancifully Jealous: For that is Foolish; as, to be reasonably so, is Wise.
I don't think I've ever heard jealousy described as Wise before.
214. If we would amend the World, we should mend Our selves; and teach our Children to be, not what we are, but what they should be.
215. We are too apt to awaken and turn up their Passions by the Examples of our own; and to teach them to be pleased, not with what is best, but with what pleases best.
216. It is our Duty, and ought to be our Care, to ward against that Passion in them, which is more especially our Own Weakness and Affliction: For we are in great measure accountable for them, as well as for our selves.
I think this is a pretty concise parenting manual:
1. Be a better person to help your children be better.
2. Don't accidentally teach your children your
We get more "country good, city bad" I wonder what these classical writers would say about the suburbs. Probably bad.
232. As many Hands make light Work, so several Purses make cheap Experiments.
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235. Never give out while there is Hope; but hope not beyond Reason, for that shews more Desire than Judgment.
174. If thou wouldest be obeyed, being a Father; being a Son, be Obedient.
175. He that begets thee, owes thee; and has a natural Right over thee.
The first one is kind of a nice, "you have to give respect to get respect." The second, I wonder if it's a typo for "owns", or some archaic uses of "owes"
186. Rarely Promise: But, if Lawful, constantly perform.
159. Do nothing improperly. Some are Witty, Kind, Cold, Angry, Easie, Stiff, Jealous, Careless, Cautious, Confident, Close, Open, but all in the wrong Place.
"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right" vs "If it's worth doing, it's worth half-assing" is one of the great philosophical questions. I think cooking is one of my favorite examples. If you're really tired, depressed, hungover, sick, whatever, it's more important to eat than to make a beautiful sandwich. But half-assing stuff does tend to cause issues down the line. (And is less rewarding in the present.)
Knowledge is mostly just Judgement>Knowledge rearranged a couple times.
Wit is similar, but does have, "Wit is an happy and striking way of expressing a Thought." which is a good way of putting it. Is it "an" because H is a soft, "vowel-like" sound?
After a month of doing poetry, here's my big three takeaways.
1. Sturgeon's Law is really pronounced for poetry. Most poetry (same as most prose) is bad. The problem is, bad poetry is obnoxious in a way that's hard (and sometimes unintentionally funny) for bad fiction.
2. Most of the things that make fiction good also apply to poetry. Faust is fun, because it has dramatic characters. Whitman is good, because he has a sense of adventure. THE NIGHTINGALE VS THE LARK VS FLOWERS XXX 9001 is bad, because it's not actually about anything interesting and it's been done a million times.
3. Meter and rhyme are bullshit. Both in that they sometimes force weird lines that would be better without, and because people ignore them. A lot. Good for them, they should.
That's some kind of life lesson by the way. Ignore the rules/customs when it makes doing the thing they're supposed to do harder.
So, in the end, fan of good poetry, hater of bad poetry, and there's a lot of bad poetry.
I assume they'll be a more formal reflection at some point as part of the challenge.
