【寒假最强书单】《动物庄园》：一场小猪的革命
经常有人问：怎样才能成为一枚有追求、有文化、有知识、有B格的四有骚年？世纪君答：诸君，去读书吧！是的，假日属于书，那些跃动着的文字，让你如沐春风。这个假日，世纪君就奉上一份“寒假最强书单”。为何“最强”？因为世纪君：综合了英国教育部考试委员会、作家JK Rowling、Philip Pullman以及英国《卫报》、美国《纽约时报》等多家国际媒体开出的青少年书单；参考了香港教育图书公司、《澳门日报》、台湾国立图书馆所列的青少年必读书目；邀请了曾在北外任教、与世纪君共事多年的英国文学博士Paul Brennan先生，一起精选出这十本书。每日一读，如抱暖阳。
今天，让我们翻开《动物庄园》，看看小猪领导的革命能否让动物们“人人平等”。
一个庄园就像是一个社会，每个动物都有自己的角色。1945年，乔治·奥威尔的《动物庄园》在英国出版。书中的这场“动物主义”革命为我们再现了动荡时代的俄国革命，而奥威尔也因其敏锐的洞察力被称为 “一代人的冷峻良知”。
Animal Farm by George Orwell was published in 1945. The year is significant, as 1945 marked the end of World War II. Germany was defeated, but as soon as one war ended, another began: the Cold War. The Cold War is the term used for the largely non-violent war between the Soviet Union and its allies (盟友) in Eastern and Central Europe, and the United States and its allies in Western Europe.
There was a lot of fear in the world during these years, shown in the West by very strong Anti-Russian feeling.
During this time, Animal Farm was an incredibly successful book. The book is a brief “fairy tale” which, despite its animal characters and story, is a fable about the “evil” Soviet Union and its leader. Until his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin was the figure who represented most Westerners’ worst fears about Russia and its threat to them.
只要革命就能获得平等和自由(All animals are equal)。庄园里的马、狗、鸡、乌鸦等动物都抱着这样的信念，跟随两头小猪——雪球和拿破仑，推翻了庄园主琼斯先生的统治。但是革命真的给了它们自由吗？琼斯先生的统治被推翻后，拿破仑除掉了雪球，独自统治庄园，并与庄园最大的敌人成为了朋友。奥威尔想要传达的信息简单明了：最终还是有人背叛了这场革命 (All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others)。
The story is about a farm on which the animals decide that they have had enough of the oppressive owner Mr Jones. They overthrow Jones and start to run the farm by themselves. It’s very easy to see that this is an allegory of the Russian Revolution.
Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, lead the animals’ revolution. Napoleon is very clearly meant to stand for Stalin, and in the book he is the villain. First, he gets rid of his rival Snowball. Afterwards, he gradually makes sure that only he and his supporters run the farm.
To make things worse, a man who was once a great enemy of the farm, Mr Frederick, becomes its friend. We only need to read the German name, “Frederick” to be able to tell that this character stands for Adolf Hitler. The friendship between Animal Farm and Frederick is similar to the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939, in which Russia and Germany agreed not to attack each other.
Eventually, it seems as if there is no difference between the animals in charge of Animal Farm and the human farmers on the other farms. Orwell’s message is clear: The revolution on Animal Farm has been betrayed.
作为“一代人的冷峻良知”，奥威尔做出了很多超越那个时代的预言，包括俄国革命终将畸变。很多人不解为何奥威尔从支持俄国革命转变为反对。但在冷战结束20多年的今天，读者们也许终于理解了奥威尔的犀利文笔下的智慧。
Orwell was a supporter of the Russian Revolution who turned against it because he disagreed with Stalin. But many readers of the book in the Cold War years thought that the book was just a simple attack on communism. Today, now that the Cold War has been over for more than 20 years, we can read Orwell’s satire and see what he really meant more clearly.
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