George Orwell: Animal farm (2007, Penguin in association with Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd.)
113 pages
English language
Published Aug. 18, 2007 by Penguin in association with Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd..
A tragic fable telling what happens when the animals drive out Mr. Jones and attempt to run their farm themselves.
I don't really remember it... kind of like high school.
Can't believe Orwell looked at the rise of the Soviet Union, the bloody collapse of a workers revolution into a personality cult that was completely detached from its original intensions, and thought "a great way to summarise this would be with farm animals".
And was correct.
‘Animal Farm’ is truly an interesting story; we all know what the story represents but George Orwell portrayed communists Russia in World War II really well. The book was short and I was able to read it in one day, almost in one sitting. I think we could spend a long time discussing which animal represents which Russian and working out which battle was The Battle of the Cowshed or The Battle of the Windmill. I did especially enjoy the flag (The Horn and Hoof Flag reminiscent of the hammer and sickle), Squealer (propaganda pig) and Moses the Raven (the Russian Orthodox Church). It is definitely one of those books you need to read at least once in your lifetime. I think I enjoyed it more than ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’.
I read this a long time ago, and I remember it only vaguely, except that I clearly recall being unimpressed by it. It all seemed too obvious. Compared to 1984, it is not worth reading. At least that's what I thought at the time.
