Animal Farm II

The kid is reading Animal Farm.

I was talking about it in re our surreal political situation, and she said she wanted to read it, was it scary. Not scary, I hedged. Depressing.

I dug out our copy and browsed through it, making sure it wasn't scary (we're still about nine hundred dollars in debt for therapy over the War of the Worlds fiasco), chewed my lip over the Great Pig Purge, and then decided to let her go ahead.

Now she's reading it. I can't remember how old I was when I read Animal Farm. Not nine, I'm certain. mr. delagar claims he was eight when he read Marx for the first time, which may well be true. (His family had a set of those Harvard Classics, and he read straight through them.) He says he went to school and told his third grade principal that her pencil should belong to the state -- which, given that it likely did belong to the state, is kind of funny, in retrospect.

Anyway, she's been reading away all afternoon. Asking me questions. Making comments. "Are animals really this oppressed?" "I'm not eating bacon ANYMORE!" "Where are all the female pigs?"

I explained to her about metaphor. Can't wait until she gets to the end. I forsee a giant storm at house delagar tonight.