You might think it’s a kid’s book if you don’t know about George Orwell. I was recommended this book and knew it was referred to the Russian period after the second world war.

The story started from a meeting among the animals in a farm. The oldest animal, the Middle White boar, Major gave a long speech about his dream at that previous night and what he saw through that dream. He advised the animals to have a rebellion! No matter how human try to convince us, we should remember that human and animal don’t have same interest. We should abandon the human from our farm and work for ourselves. Old Major’s message was passed on to the entire farm among the animals and carried out when he died 2 weeks after that meeting. Anyone who knows about Russian history would know the consequence.

What I find it interesting in this book is that it sets the pigs as the most intelligent animal. The sheep’s obedience to the leader was overwhelming. There is a horse called Boxer, he is such a great but sad figure. Although it has some gloomy atmosphere in some part of the story, you still eager to carry on reading because the writer was such a good story teller.  It left me with all sorts of thoughts about the communism in China. What happened in 1960s was exactly as described in the book. Then what’s happening now? Is it a reflecting of the end of the story? Or the situation in China is different?

Just finished reading this book. Took about 2 weeks, on and off. Although there are so many vocabulary I have to check up on a dictionary, it’s still a very enjoyable book. A good book always comforts me.

<Buying a fishing rod for my grandfater>—Gao Xingjian