Snowball's Chance (16 page)

Benjamin, who had been asked a million questions, had finally found the answer. Benjamin, who had lived a million days, had finally found the one thing that could make him alive. Benjamin, that defeated, cynical, heartbroken donkey, had discovered that love, for Emerald, for Kip, for all the animals of the fair, was the meaning of his life. And then, to save their lives, Benjamin had given his own.

Benjamin had died a hero, and for those who saw, they would tell … that was how a donkey died.

Transfixed by the catastrophe, animals watched as a vast cloud of smoke engulfed the day. And suddenly, it was night. A moonless, starless night. A night—not of a setting sun, but of a rising blackness. Animals on two legs fell to all fours, and some, from there, fell to their bellies—to gasp the black breaths that would be their last. In an instant, they were covered, buried, and lost.

Amidst flames and frenzy out of control, a gone-wild gray squirrel—a feral, ferocious Woodlands animal—screamed the Beaver Creed as he was shaken to death by a dog.

Through the killing smoke, sheep wheezed angrily—

“The Woodlands animals! The Woodlands animals!”

And dogs arriving on the scene repeated them—

“The Woodlands animals! The Woodlands animals!”

And one of the shepherds nabbed a running rabbit. Wasn’t that Zeke? The Woodlands newcomer who worked the candy-apple stand? And before any animal
could formulate a word, or even a thought, that dog had torn Zeke to shreds. And that dog—anyone who looked at that dog immediately saw it—he must have known something about Zeke the rabbit. And to look at Zeke—well, even in a chaos like this, he was clearly guilty of something.

And one couldn’t help but realize—not even the sheep needed it explained—every Woodlands animal was a conspirator.

“Where are the Woodlands animals? The Woodlands animals?” asked the dogs. “Have you seen any beavers? Student beavers?” And the fair animals pointed to where the Woodlands animals, all of them recent immigrants, had taken shelter. And the fair animals pointed to where the beavers, and the student beavers, had taken shelter. And the dogs, in their clenched jaws, dragged the Woodlands creatures away.…

And then came the goats—breaking out gas masks from large crates that had appeared from somewhere. And as the goats were already wearing the masks, no animal could tell one goat from another. Who was who? Were they their goats? Was Thomas still alive to protect them?

Yes, the animals could see as the dogs donned the masks, these were their goats. They were good goats!

And after the dogs had adjusted the head straps of their own masks (the pigs were already snug in theirs), they distributed them to the hysterical fair animals, who were either running to and fro, not knowing where to go, or just standing, frozen in fear. And as the dogs passed out the masks, the goats were saying, “There’s nothing to worry about, it’s not dangerous. Just stay where you
are.” And the dogs were repeating, “There’s nothing to worry about, it’s not dangerous. Just stay where you are.” And the animals were doing just that, and as the second Twin Mill collapsed on them—they died where they stood.

And more dust rose—and there was blackness. And then there was Snowball, standing atop the chicken coop.

And the animals heard that great pig Snowball, who had somehow acquired a bullhorn, announcing, “We were prepared for this.” And without pause, that great pig Snowball called the extremist attack, “The Massacre of the Twin Mills.” And for it, he vowed—

“Revenge, justice, retaliation! The blood of beavers will flow in the river of the Woodlands!”

And from the rowdiest of the badgers and geese to the most retiring of the voles and ducks—all the animals were calling out for this deliverance. They foamed at the maw and the beak—and the fangs of dogs pointed through an angry froth. And the divisions of shepherds pouring forth from the Jones House were more fierce and multitudinous than anyone could have ever imagined. And the animals, they received the legions of dogs with heartfelt cheers—and feathers and fur raised in vengeance. They were all big now.

The sheep started out with something they had retained from somewhere—

“It’s entirely up to us! It’s entirely up to us.”

And in only a moment their coarse cheer had overcome itself with that roar more rousing and familiar—

“Animal Fair! Animal Fair!”

And the rest of the park animals, who were usually silenced by such outbursts from the sheep, this time
responded, belting out a battle cry of their own—one that quickly overpowered the baa-ing of the sheep altogether.

“Kill the beavers!”

“Kill the beavers!”

“Kill!”

“Kill!”

“Kill!”

A few weeks after September 11, 2001, John Reed called me to ask why his agent’s lawyer had flagged his newly penned satire of George Orwell’s
Animal Farm
, based on the events surrounding the attack on the World Trade Center. I knew immediately that Orwell’s anti-communist sacred cow was not a tract publishers wanted to dis. There was no way the same mainstream press that published John’s first book, a romantic Civil War novel, would print this highly charged political tract.

Everybody was afraid of St. George, and vengeance was in the air: Christian love was about to engulf the world. Very few publications or writers for that matter wanted to point out that 9/11 was as much a result of American policy as it was driven by Islamic fundamentalism.

So I put my head on the block and asked John if he’d let Roof Books publish
Snowball
. I made it clear that as a slightly academic poetry publisher Roof didn’t have the distribution that important critiques of U.S. policy like
Snowball’s Chance
demanded. Nevertheless, we decided it was worth the effort and better to get it in print somehow than let it languish in commercial limbo.

My first concern was a lawsuit from the Orwell estate, which seemed very possible at the time of publication.
I, for one, was hoping for a lawsuit—but in the intervening years, that eventuality has become unlikely. Legal decisions on
The Wind Done Gone
and other parodies have reasserted the right to parody in the United States. (Even parody in the United Kingdom, which has never been protected, is now in a state of transformation.) In 1994, Justice David Souter delivered a unanimous Supreme Court decision on the use by 2 Live Crew of the Roy Orbison song “Oh, Pretty Woman,” which said that “even if 2 Live Crew’s copying of the original’s first line of lyrics and characteristic opening bass riff may be said to go to the original’s ‘heart,’ that heart is what most readily conjures up the song for parody, and it is the heart at which parody takes aim.” Souter also quoted Lord Ellenborough: “While I shall think myself bound to secure every man in the enjoyment of his copyright, one must not put manacles upon science.”

Acting as the publisher, I informed the Orwell estate that we were going to publish
Snowball
and sent them galleys. I received a rapid response from Orwell’s nephew, William Hamilton, on July 8, 2002. His note said that said he was “hostile” to the book and its execution. He made the point that imitation trivializes Orwell’s victories over totalitarianism. He attacked Reed’s “commercial … exploitation” of Orwell’s ideas. Hamilton further wrote that relating
Animal Farm
to 9/11 can only bring Orwell’s name into disrepute, as if Reed were anxious to support Orwell’s politics. Finally, he said he was alarmed that Roof would consider publishing the book “without clearing the rights in principle” with Hamilton and the estate. Finally, he wrote that he would consider what further action to take.

Nothing happened. I proceeded to publish the book, but I feared that without a significant publicity effort that I could not afford, it would fall into the abyss.

Fortunately, quite a bit of publicity followed. As publisher I monitored the attacks carefully and
Snowball’s Chance
became Roof’s best-selling book. Even though the Orwell estate did not pursue legal action, misrepresentations by media and government about American policy certainly drove many critics to attack
Snowball’s Chance
. Cathy Young intentionally confused the reader in her review “Blaming the victim of terrorism” in the
Boston Globe
, suggesting that Reed’s critique of American policy empowered conservatives: “Some so-called progressives, it seems, would rather whitewash theocratic fascism than acknowledge that the West holds the moral high ground in any conflict. Ironically, this repugnant attitude only helps those conservatives who would demonize all dissent on war-related issues. It certainly makes their job easier.”

What became apparent as the reviews were published was that
Snowball’s Chance
mounted both a valid criticism of Orwell original’s support of the security state and a clear minded critique of free market corporatism.

The British press was most incensed about Reed’s novel. Defending Orwell, the
Telegraph
stamped its trotters, “It will take a great deal more than a fortnight’s work by a smart-aleck anti-corporatist to undermine the most brilliant satire of the 20
^th
century.” The
Scotsman
asked “is it ever right to write a book modelled on a classic, that twists the original message into unrecognisable form?”

Christopher Hitchens was trotted out to defend both Orwell and corporate prerogatives. He called Reed “a Bin
Ladenist” in their BBC radio conversation. During the interview, Reed’s microphone was unaccountably turned off, so his response was not broadcast.

But many critics did recognize the real message in
Snowball’s Chance
and supported the book: John Strausbaugh in the
New York Press
wrote that Reed “not only shanghais Orwell’s story, but amps up and mocks the writer’s famously flat, didactic style—that fairytailish simplicity that has ensured
Animal Farm
a place in high school English classes for the last 50 years.” This same publication hosted an argument between Hitchens and his former friend, Alexander Cockburn, and
Snowball’s Chance
was mentioned. As far afield as Oregon, Paul Duchene commented in the
Portland Tribune
, “Orwell’s sacred pigs get a proper roast.”

One of the most supportive articles came from Dinitia Smith in the
New York Times
, “A pig returns to the farm, thumbing his snout at Orwell … the world had a new evil to deal with, and it was not communism.” Not only did Smith extoll the virtues of the book but extolled Reed’s authenticity, saying in effect that she’d rather spend her time in the author’s hovel than in the board rooms of those concocting legal actions.

Smith writes about her conversation in John Reed’s apartment, “Reed said he was watching the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on television in his East Village apartment on Sept. 11 when the idea came to him to rewrite the Orwell classic. ‘I thought, “Why would they do this to us?” ’ he remembered. ‘The twin towers attack showed us that something is wrong with our system, too.’ ”

At the time Reed was writing
Snowball’s Chance
, it was becoming more widely known that Orwell had turned sharply to the right in his later years. He was closely associated with the British spy Celia Kirwan and through her handed MI6 a list of those “crypto-Communists” Smith cites. Alexander Cockburn’s introduction to the first edition rewards the reader with details of Orwell’s indiscretions that resulted in the list of “unreliable” intellectuals being ultimately handed over to CIA, and the individuals were proscribed under the McCarran Act

Far from justifying Stalin’s policies as some critics have asserted, Reed’s novel identifies the pigs as any individual or class seeking power over people laboring quietly in their own “fields.” Rather than simply pointing the finger at one party or another, the apparatchiks in
Snowball
are all “democratic” policy makers, feathering their own
nest at the expense of others. From the beginning, Reed makes that clear. As the old pigs died, who should return to the farm (firm), dressed in human clothes, carrying a briefcase, and walking on two feet but Snowball the pig.

Reed renews Snowball, not as a champion of justice as he was in Orwell’s novel, but as a power broker, declaiming the phrases of democracy and prosperity for all, but in reality lining his pocket and gathering power to himself at the expense of the rest of the animals. In a little over a hundred pages Reed captures a vivid picture of American policy and reactions from the Islamic world. Financial inequality, imperialist repression, immigration policy, voting irregularities, civil rights abuses and the rise of the ultra rich reverberate throughout the pages of
Snowball’s Chance
. And the attack on the World Trade Center is explained carefully and humorously—down to the willful blindness of the pigs. To the beavers, “Snowball looked weak, and with his many pursuits, overextended.” This, too, was Bin Laden’s calculation. And when the attack does occur what is the farm’s response? “Revenge, justice, retaliation! The blood of the beavers will flow in the river of the Woodlands! … Kill the beavers! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

And here we are, more than ten years later.

 
THE NEVERSINK LIBRARY