Best Book About Talking Animals?

Lowbrow Answer: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Dear C.S. Lews,

Please take your poorly veiled attempts at Christian morality and shove them up your ass.

Your pal,

Jeffrey

p.s. Naming your heroic lion character "Aslan" makes him sound like a gay bartender in Soho.


Middlebrow Answer: Animal Farm
George Orwell's parable about Stalinist goverment is a classic. Using vicious dogs as secret police, power-hungry pigs take over a farm and basically enslave the other animals. What a fun adventure! I like to imagine little kids mistakenly picking this book off the shelf and reading it. I can just picture a seven-year-old terrorizing his family at the dinner table with socialist rants and an empassioned coups d'état of the mashed potatoes.

The whole thing's a little obvious, though. We get it, George. You're talking about human beings. The genius of satire is that it's subtle, but you've chosen to beat us over the head with it. Reading Animal Farm is like going to one of those new age plays where actors are running across the stage every ten minutes shouting, "This is theatre! This is theatre!" Just shut up already.


Highbrow Answer: Watership Down
This shit is so intense. I cried like eight times the first time I read it. The rabbits in this story are more cultured than I am. They speak their own language, enjoy a rich history of poetry and mythology, and practice democracy and leadership better than any regime that's been in charge of this country. Maybe we should elect a bunny in the next presidential election. At the very least he'd be smarter than George W.

The myth in the story is that all rabbits are descended from a demi-god rabbit called El-ahrairah, or, in English, "The prince with a thousand enemies." I'm sorry, but that's the coolest thing I've ever heard. I'm not religious, but I'd definitly convert if I got to pray to a epic mythical rabbit with an Arabic name.