Animal Farm by George Orwell

Title: Animal Farm

Originally published: 1945
Dates read: 10/22/18-10/26/18; 11/7/18-11/7/18
Back to the Classics category: Re-Read a Classic
Find out more about the Back to the Classics 2018 reading challenge HERE.
Read my other book reviews from the challenge HERE.

Author: George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair was born on June 25, 1903, who later decided on George Orwell as his pen name, was the second child of British parents Richard Walmesly Blair and Ida Mabel Limonzin who then resided in Indian Bengal. Blair was an outstanding student and attended reputable educational institutions in England. He did not continue his studies at a university but joined the Indian Imperial Army in Burma. He resigned a few years later, in 1927, with immense hatred for imperialism.

During the 1930s, Orwell published several novels. In 1936, Orwell volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War for the Republicans where he was shot in the neck and had to flee for his life. During WWII until 1940, Orwell wrote book reviews in the New English Weekly for a living. He also worked for the BBC Eastern Service writing propaganda. Orwell married Eileen O’Shaughnessy around 1940 and adopted a son. When Eileen died in 1949, Orwell married Sonia Brownell. Orwell died of Tuberculosis at age 46 on January 21, 1950. (Source Source)

Description on back of book:
Animal Farm is a typical satirical and political novel from the ever known author; George Orwell. In this narration, readers go through a world of animals living with a different code of laws. Orwell says though Animal Farm was primarily a satire on the Russian Revolution it was intended to have a vast application. That kind of revolution, which he defines as 'Violent conspiratorial revolution led by unconscious power hungry people,' could only lead to a change of matters.

Favorite quote:
"It might be that their lives were hard and that not all of their hopes had been fulfilled, but they were conscious that they were not as other animals. If they went hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical human beings; if they worked hard, at least they worked for themselves. No creature called any other creature 'Master'. All animals were equal."

Review:
I read this about 10 years ago while I was high school and decided I wanted to give it a re-read. The book was rather simple and predictable (maybe because I read it before), and overall I was underwhelmed. Nonetheless, I definitely think it's a book everyone should read at least once (it's less than 100 pages long). If you haven't read Animal Farm yet - then forget about this review and go read it!

Below contains spoilers.

Despite being underwhelmed, the book made me feel strongly by the end: I hated the manipulation, mistreatment, and two-facedness of the pigs (leaders of Animal Farm) to the other animals; and it broke my heart to see the potential rise and (inevitable?) regression of Manor Farm into Animal Farm and back to into Manor Farm.

Animal Farm starts off with 7 simple commandments which are summed up in "Four legs good, Two legs bad." The idea is that all animals are equal and work together against the humans. This has a botchy start since the pigs set themselves as leaders above the other animals right away and teach themselves to read and write (which is very human-like). Slowly, more and more human tendencies are accepted by the pigs and the commandments are altered. These changes can easily be made because the other animals can't read well, so they just believe whatever the persuasive pigs tell them. Eventually, in the very end, the pigs walk on two feet, become allies with humans, and change the mantra to "Four legs good, Two legs better." The Favorite quote listed above is inspirational until you understand the background of it - then it becomes tragic:

"It might be that their lives were hard and that not all of their hopes had been fulfilled, but they were conscious that they were not as other animals (not controlled by humans). If they went hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical human beings (but from feeding the pigs); if they worked hard, at least they worked for themselves (they worked for the pigs and had no say in anything). No creature called any other creature 'Master' (though Napolean was never called Master, he was very much a dictator). All animals were equal."

All the parts in parentheses I added. And that last sentence of the quote? Well, in the end, the 7 commandments are painted over and replaced with "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." (Gut. Wrenching.) In the very last sentence of the book, the animals could not tell the difference between the humans and the pigs - they became the very thing they rebelled against in the beginning.

My biggest wish would be to have Snowball (another pig leader) overthrow Napolean rather than the other way around. Napolean was clearly a tyrannical communist, but Snowball seemed to be a lot more of a (non-communist) socialist. I would have liked to see Animal Farm played out under his leadership. (Follow the link the very end of this review if you'd like to understand better the difference between communism and socialism.)

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let George Orwell have the last words:

"As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, all working according to his capacity, and the strong protecting the weak. Instead - she did not know why - they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that even as things were they were far better off than they had been in the day of Jones and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napolean. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced the pellets of Jones' gun. Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them."

Hey! Glad you're still here! Congrats and reading the review all the way through! Many of the books I've read this year have been highly political and I've been a little confused about different political ideologies. The Difference Between Socialism, Communism, and Marxism is just one of the YouTube videos I've watched trying to educate myself. I highly suggest it if you're interested. It's 11:25 minutes long  - if that's too long for you, skip to 5:18 and watch from there. Or you can just watch the recap, which starts at 9:45.