La Bibliothèque

THIS PAGE IS A COLLECTION OF MY POST-BOOK MUSINGS AND REVIEWS...

ANIMAL FARM

‘All animals are equal. But some are more equal than others.’

Dubbed as anti-Soviet literature which was banned at the peak of Stalin era, it’s treasure chest for me!

Was stunned at the twists and turns, more so at the end. A revolution kicks off in the Manor Farm and the ideology of ‘animalism’ is born where all animals resort to self governance propounding principles of an egalitarian society. Things turn haywire when the pigs take the reins and become corrupt. Slowly, the seven commandments of animalism become malleable, subject to distortions by the volition of the leader - Napoleon, the boar. The farm grows rich on the labor of the workers’ sweat, ultimately the pigs become ‘humanised’, start walking on two legs(yeah, physically) and get engaged in a hedonistic way of living. The system is a disaster in the end.

A dilemma that I confront now is this –

A friend had remarked long back, ‘socialism as originally propounded by Marx never came into being!’. So what started with right intentions was later besmirched by corrupt influences, as per the argument.

The failure as I see, is it the failure of the system and ideology per se or is it just a case of wrong implementation of ideology? The objective function of forming an egalitarian society is clean and noble, no doubt about it, my skepticism arises from the model adopted in achieving the same. My intuition and innate prejudices incline towards failure of the former, but I must admit, I have no categorical argument backing the same. In search of the same, still mulling…

Jalnidh Kaur, December 14, 2011

1984

A feeling of fullness that I had long forgotten came back again, the sense of contentment that washes you when you finish reading a book, knowing consciously how it’s a small world that will be ingrained in you memory forever and only time or Alzheimer’s will be able to expunge it, of which you had become a part of at some time in the past, and whose reference will keep popping in your head everytime you think of expressing an opinion – that will become your benchmark.

So I just finished reading George Orwell’s 1984 – i will never forget the the sense of constriction and suffocation I felt on reading this novel. The idea of just never being alone, being under the gaze of a huge screen constantly, letting your thoughts and gestures be scanned by the government, believing that freedom is slavery and that war is peace and that two and two make five – it just left me panting for space and breath. 

Jalnidh Kaur, October 31, 2011