Paperback, 120 pages
English language
Published 1972 by Penguin Books.
Animal Farm
3 stars
(1 review)
In this biting satire upon dictatorship, George Orwell makes use of the technique perfected by Swift in A Tale of a Tub. It is the history of a revolution that went wrong — and of the excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for each perversion of the original doctrine. The animals on a farm drive out their master and take over and administer the farm for themselves. The experiment is entirely successful, except for the unfortunate fact that someone has to take the deposed farmer's place. Leadership devolves almost automatically upon the pigs, who are on a higher intellectual level than the rest of the animals. Unhappily their character is not equal to their intelligence, and out of this fact springs the main development of the story. The last chapter brings a dramatic change, which, as soon as it has happened, is seen to have been inevitable from …
In this biting satire upon dictatorship, George Orwell makes use of the technique perfected by Swift in A Tale of a Tub. It is the history of a revolution that went wrong — and of the excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for each perversion of the original doctrine. The animals on a farm drive out their master and take over and administer the farm for themselves. The experiment is entirely successful, except for the unfortunate fact that someone has to take the deposed farmer's place. Leadership devolves almost automatically upon the pigs, who are on a higher intellectual level than the rest of the animals. Unhappily their character is not equal to their intelligence, and out of this fact springs the main development of the story. The last chapter brings a dramatic change, which, as soon as it has happened, is seen to have been inevitable from the start.
'This little book, about as long as Candide, may fairly be compared with it as a searching commentary on the dominant philosophy of the age' - Punch
The cover shows a detail from 'The Tilled Field' by Joan Mirò, in the Henry Clifford Collection, Radnor, Pennsylvania (photo Don Hunstein) For copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in The U.S.A.
