Animal Farm - George Orwell

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a very short book. Its story, insights, concepts and message will ring true as long as humans come together to work. The fact that Animal Farm is entirely about humans is a sweet irony. That is also its main appeal to me. It provides a glimpse into how good intentions, ideas, ideals and lofty thinking fall apart gradually. I see it as a satirical fable that helps explain the ups and downs of history. Simple in its telling, complex in its content, meaning and relevance.

Today people urge you to be enthusiastic about everything. It is fascinating for me to find out that such a common word as enthusiasm has a topsy-turvy history behind it.

The word enthusiasm comes from Greek and has a religious angle to its meaning which is very nicely hidden under the surface. For a certain time, enthusiasm was used in a negative and derogatory sense. This is certainly one of the words that has now undergone a complete transformation.

Every time I pick up this book for a read, I end up going through it with the same enthusiasm I felt when I read it for the first time. Despite being a recurring book in my bookshelf for more than a dozen years, this book retains a freshness. The kind of freshness one feels when plunging into reading a new, interesting book. I am not a big fan of philosophical books. Dreary arguments are not the reason I pick it up to read.

There is more to it.

These days, I am recovering from a long drought of reading. I seem to walk into bookshops and spend a lot of time leafing through the ones that catch my fancy, the ones recommended by friends, critics and of course, web reviews.

After spending 20 to 30 minutes, I seem to be drawn towards the stationery section. There, I usually pick up a beautiful, luxuriously built blank notebook. The kind that would have lavish binding, gilded pages and superb paper quality.

What’s going on?