Thursday, May 10, 2007

A pun I'm proud of

I make lots of puns, but I'm particularly pleased with this one that came to me as I was giving a talk during the Rollback book tour.

I referred to George Orwell's Animal Farm as "a roman à cleft hoof."

Hee hee hee.

(Don't get it? A roman à clef is the term used in literary circles for a novel that you won't understand fully unless you know what it's really about; the term is French for "novel with a key." Animal Farm appears to be about, well, animals on a farm, but it's really about the Russian revolution; cows and other farm animals have cleft hooves. Yeah, yeah, I know: it's not funny if you have to explain it. Still ...)

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site


2 Comments:

At June 11, 2007 7:13 PM , Anonymous Shoshana said...

I work for the HNL (head neck and lung) team at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, and my teammate and I have a farm made up of small toys. His are normal farm animals, plus a rock and some monsters. I have a sheep-cow and a bunny-chicken and some my little ponies. We made a little sign that says HNL Farm: hybrids good inannimates bad. We think that we are very clever.

 
At June 11, 2007 7:16 PM , Blogger RobertJSawyer said...

Hee hee hee! And you are! And GREAT to see you here, Shoshana! :) :)

 

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