Animal Farm and 1984 [Hardcover]

George Orwell (Author), Christopher Hitchens (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2003

ANIMAL FARM

George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is an intimate part of our contemporary culture. It is the account of the bold struggle, initiated by the animals, that transforms Mr. Jones's Manor Farm into Animal Farm--a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal. Out of their cleverness, the pigs Napoleon, Squealer, and Snowball emerge as leaders of the new community in a subtle evolution that proves disastrous. The climax is the brutal betrayal of the faithful horse Boxer, when totalitarian rule is reestablished with the bloodstained postscript to the founding slogan: But some Animals Are More Equal Than Others. . . .

1984

In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A wise, compassionate, and illuminating fable of our times....The steadiness and lucidity of Orwell's merciless wit are reminiscent of Anatole France and even of Swift." --New York Times Book Review --This text refers to the MP3 CD edition.

From the Inside Flap

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is the account of the bold struggle, initiated by the animals, that transforms Mr. Jones's Manor Farm into Animal Farm--a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal. Out of their cleverness, the pigs Napoleon, Squealer, and Snowball emerge as leaders of the new community in a subtle evolution that proves disastrous. The climax is the brutal betrayal of the faithful horse Boxer, when totalitarian rule is re-established with the bloodstained postscript to the founding slogan: But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.



WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (June 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151010269
• ISBN-13: 978-0151010264
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (190 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Alternate History
  • #9 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction
  • #21 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Political

More About the Author

GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950) was born in India and served with the Imperial Police in Burma before joining the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was the author of six novels as well as numerous essays and nonfiction works.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

168 of 181 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars On this edition - May 30, 2006

By A. R. Grenier VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Because most people will review the actual book(s), which in this case are classics and I feel do not truly need a review, I will review this edition. Having the two in one is useful if you, like me, have not read the two prior to purchase or if you are a fan of both books. They are bound handsomely and the dust jacket is simple and smooth. The introduction is by someone who is obviously enamored with Orwell, and it gives some insight to the work and history of Orwell, though is mostly unecessary as you could probably wikipedia the information. This is a nice edition and I felt it was a good choice for me.

131 of 140 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Worthy literature that transcends the genre of political fable June 22, 2008

By Odysseus

Format:Hardcover

This is a handsome republication of Orwell's two most renowned works, Animal Farm and 1984. Even if you're just looking for 1984, this edition is to be commended; it comes with a fine introduction by today's leading Orwell enthusiast, Christopher Hitchens, and the reward of including Animal Farm requires very little in the way of additional effort or expense on your part. At 80-odd pages, you may as well pick it up in the same volume, and you're virtually certain to be glad that you did.

I'm not alone in being of a generation that was first required to read Orwell in my student days (Middle School, in my case.) It seems that there was a lot of literature churned out then, accessible to if not directly aimed at children, with the horrors of totalitarianism as its theme. In addition to reading Orwell, we were also reading Huxley, Bradbury, and Verne -- the youth-oriented John Christopher books being yet another example. The generation that lived through Nazism and Stalinism clearly wanted the younger set to be aware of the horrors that could be, and to remain on guard against them.

It doesn't seem to be quite that way anymore. Orwell's name is invoked today, but often in trivializing contexts: "Big Brother" is now a brain-numbing reality show, and "Orwellian" is a convenient and often hysterically-applied charge to political opponents. Some complaceny does seem to be inevitable: we are now further removed from the days when the likes of Hitler and Stalin killed tens of millions. Still, regimes arise that are nearly as horrific on a local scale, from Pol Pot to Saddam Hussein to the Taliban, and are real enough that Orwell's book is no joke.... Orwell deserves attention if for no other reason than to sensitize us to the bad form associated with invoking his name in a trivializing context. There was a political ad on Youtube last year from an Obama supporter that cast Hillary Clinton on a giant Big Brother-like screen. I'm not in the least a fan of Senator Clinton, but associating her image with those of 1984 -- as was also done in an infamous Apple Computer ad -- trivializes Orwell's message in a deplorable way. Orwell wrote his novel to warn against real dangers that his generation lived through, and which others might yet, not as a marketing ploy to be used in selling either computers or nearly indistinguishable democratic political candidacies.

The main reason I am writing this review, however, is that re-reading Orwell in my 40's is a stark reminder that his novels are more than political parables, but are worthy literature. I hope that those reading these reviews will be aware of this, and not shut their minds to a rewarding literary experience.

As a kid, I was able to perceive the pedagogical intent of these books, but less so was I able to appreciate the literary artistry. 1984 in particular passes the Nabokovian test of creating a fully believable, if terrifying, alternate world. Beyond that, on nearly every page, Orwell leaves an image that just might stay with you forever. Small wonder that so many of the terms in 1984 ("Big Brother," "Newspeak") have burrowed their way into our lexicography.

Orwell was a man of the left who understood something that many of his compatriots did not; that what had arisen in the Soviet Union was a regime unprecedented in its horror (arriving before, and ultimately outlasting, its horrific mirror image, Hitler's Third Reich.) At a time when others on the left simply refused to believe in the reality of the USSR, he looked at it unflinchingly and wrote what it was really about.

Also, in childhood, I was not able to fully appreciate that Orwell's books simply weren't negative-utopian nightmare-fantasies, but paralleled actual events in the USSR with chilling accuracy. I knew, at some level, that he was satirizing certain events and characters in the Russian Revolution, but only in adulthood was I able to closely recognize nearly every episode and character in Animal Farm. Those familiar with USSR history will find it all here in the two books: the rewriting of the past to reaffirm the infallibility of the Party, the sudden reorienting of national propaganda to suit the latest twist of foreign policy, and the complete elimination of all references to those unfortunate souls decreed never to have existed.

Truly, the thing that makes 1984 terrifying now, is not what was imagined in the novel's construction, but what was real in its sources. It exaggerates even relative to the Stalinist state -- but not by much. It is this recognition that makes it a chilling read today.

1984 is the more vivid and evocative of the two novels. Excepting one passage (Goldstein's dreary history lesson about 2/3 of the way through) it is riveting almost throughout its 300 pages.

A few notes for younger readers: The moral of Animal Farm is not that Napoleon was simply a bad apple, but rather that the system adopted by the Animals ensured that ultimately such a tyrant would dominate. (I find the end of Animal Farm to be something of a false note; in the end the pigs prove no better than, and resemble, the humans they replaced, but this understates the tragic reality that the USSR was worse still than that which it replaced.)

As I close, I leave you with one random question about 1984: how come it never occurs to Eastasia and Eurasia to combine against Oeania? Given that Oceania keeps flipping its allegiance from one to the other, you'd think they'd ultimately catch on and both decide to attack Oceania at the same time.

Silly questions aside, this book is highly commended. Worth re-reading again, especially if you only have read Orwell when as immature as was I. Read more ›

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic novels in a beautiful edition April 24, 2008

By M. Heiss

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Animal Farm and 1984 are classic literature. You've probably already read them.

This edition presents them in a classic manner -- it is a lovely book, lovely dust jacket, and Christopher Hitchens does the intro. I usually find him funny and a little snarky, but in this intro, he is serious, high-minded, informative, and respectful.

I wanted to read 1984 again, since so many people are kicking around the terms "Orwellian" and "Big Brother" regarding current politics. I'm so glad this is the volume I bought. I know I would have gotten the same *words* in a flimsy paperback, but this was a really nice read.

I read both novels again. It has been... 20 years? Maybe longer since my first read-through. I'm a different reader than I was before.

I've got that grisly Room 101 scene back in my head -- I had forgotten that one. Thanks, Mr. Orwell.

This is a lovely edition. Treat yourself.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars So many typos - why? February 14, 2012

By SteveB

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I enjoyed these 2 works tremendously. It's part of a retirement project to read as many iconic works as possible that somehow I didn't get down to reading early in life. However, in this day and age of spellcheckers, why are there so many typos in this Kindle edition? It looks as if the works were scanned and translated into text by software, but not then checked. Come on Amazon, you can do better.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great readers February 12, 2008

By T. Jarrell

Format:Audio CD

Simon Prebble and Ralph Cosham both do a fine job of narration. They both have easily understood English accents, and differentiated character voices that are not distracting and allow the listener to easily follow dialog between multiple characters.

Both books are very good cautionary tales about over-mighty governments that remain unchecked by citizens. I am a naturally optimistic person, but after I read either one of these books I am forced to take a more warily critical look at the government and media. It is very important that all citizens do this occasionally to avoid becoming the sheep of Animal Farm or the blind party member of 1984.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Valuable Elements of Our Literary and Political History May 19, 2008

By Barbara Frederick

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Many of us were assigned these books to read in school by thoughtful teachers. All of us should read them. In both, George Orwell gives us the tools to see exactly what liberty means and why we cannot afford to lose it.

In "Animal Farm," the fable is sufficiently removed from human experience that you can read this one to quite young children, just as you can "Alice in Wonderland" or other classics which say more each time you read them as you grow up. Even a first-grader could see the relationship of the politics of the barnyard to the politics of the playground. The jeering refrain of "Surely you don't want Jones back" can easily be recognized as the propaganda fallacy called "Reductio ad Hitlarum." Whenever the ruling pigs ran out of useful things to say, they fell back on slogans which meant nothing, but which could be molded to mean whatever they wanted them to mean in a given circumstance.

The completely classic "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" is one we must keep in mind whenever politicians start using words as if they mean the reverse of what they do mean.

1984, too, has its beautifully classic lines. The main characters are all members of the Ingsoc Party (English Socialism). It is not until well into the book that we learn they are only some 15% of the population; the rest are proles. The proles are easily dismissed as insignificant: "They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect." Use that line the next time someone tells you it's not important to educate our entire population to the best of their capabilities....

When the main character, Winston Smith, attempts to placate his tormenter by saying "You are ruling over us for our own good," he is scorned as "stupid, Winston, stupid." The party big shot responds with one of the most chilling lines I have ever read: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever."

Through the medium of conversations in the lunch room of the "Ministry of Truth," Orwell is able to tell us much about the creation and preservation of a totalitarian state. One key is the control over language which the Party exercises: "Newspeak." One of the people working on the Newspeak dictionary explains it to Winston: "You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words--scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting language down to the bone." He brags that very soon "all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron--they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be."

Putting these two in a single hardbound volume and adding a thoughtful introduction by Christopher Hitchens was a stroke of genius on the part of Harcourt Books. It will make it all the easier for professors of political science, literature, history, psychology . . . indeed, if it was not such a contradiction with regard to books so dedicated to liberty, I'd say make them required reading. Read more ›