Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

A pun I’m proud of

by Rob - May 10th, 2007.
Filed under: Uncategorized.

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 …)

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