having never been assigned george orwell's Animal Farm in any English or Russian history classes, i decided it was high time to read it. why? well, i was curious, since it's an oft-referenced book, plus i like aminals very much.
being such a short book, it only took me a couple of days to read, but it affected me greatly. i mean, i was UPSET. poor little aminals! poor Boxer the hardest working horse ever! stupid mean piggies!
i must say, some might fault me because i appear to prefer animals to humans. here are a few examples:
- i was once given a scenario by my friend kate - a newborn baby and a little puppy are drowning. i can only save one. which would i save? well, my first instinct was 'puppy'. i think i said that outloud, too. i was eventually convinced through guilt into saving the baby, but my heart was still with the poor drowning pup.
- i greatly hope that one day, if i have heaps of money, that i can donate a large chunk to the humane society or another animal related service. i have never fantasized about contributing large amounts to any other sort of charity
- the last time i recall crying due to watching a movie, it was at the end of Quill, a Japanese movie about the entire life (and death) of a charming golden lab seeing-eye dog. before that, i MIGHT have cried at the end of 'i am sam', but i blame that on who i was watching it with...taes tends to cry a lot (which isn't, of course, a bad thing). before that, it was probably during a Benji the Hunted (when it was in theatres...in 1987) and before that, i remember crying at the end of some Disney movie that featured a puppy who appeared to be dead, but then a little girl picked it up and rubbed it in a blanket, and he woke up. i have no idea what movie that was, but i'm tearing up right now at the thought of it.
- my beloved Grandpa Smith, the man who used to take me out of school to go to Ontario Place for the day, take me for breakfast at McDonald's (and buy me COOKIES for breakfast), took me on my first upside down rollercoaster, carried a whoopie cushion around with him at almost all times, and took every opportunity to find euphemisms for 'flatulence' whenever he came up with word definitions in the game Balderdash, died almost 2 years ago. that was quite an emotional time for me. my parents went to BC for the memorial, but i had to stay at home to stay w/ our golden lab, sally, who was developing weird lumps in her neck. before my parents returned, i had to take her to the vet cuz the lumps were getting alarmingly large. i was told she had lymphoma and had, at most, a month to live. while i walked her home that day, i think i cried harder than i have ever cried in my entire life. so now i have the love of that dog and the love of my grandpa and their combined deaths permanently married in my psyche.
woo, ok, so that's all pretty heavy. umm...yeah, animal farm. i guess what i'm trying to say is, orwell did a really good job of getting the point across about the suffering of the poor working class in the soviet union during Stalin's rule, because my sympathy towards suffering animals somehow turns me into a big blubbery pile of snot, whereas the suffering of humans...well, it's bad, but the snot quotient is much lower.
in conclusion, i apparently have a very skewed and unhealthy attitude towards the human race. hrm.
however, my parents are getting a new puppy soon. BEST SUMMER EVER!
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