Animal Farm

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George Orwell: Animal Farm (Hardcover, 2021, Pengiun Books Ltd.)

Hardcover, 128 pages

English language

Published Jan. 6, 2021 by Pengiun Books Ltd..

ISBN:
978-0-241-45386-5
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4 stars (4 reviews)

When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master, Mr Jones, and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless elite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought, and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another. Orwell's chilling 'fairy story' is a timeless and devastating satire of idealism betrayed by power and corruption.

3 editions

reviewed Animal Farm by George Orwell

Tragically Amusing

5 stars

Every time I re-read this book a new golden nugget appears, which is incredible considering how succinct the fable is. This time I found specially amusing the cat's engagement on the re-education committee and found myself laughing at the clever writing multiple times, like remembering old morbid humour jokes that still warrant a nose exhale.

Orwell's goal of putting to pen in simple terms a trajectory from democracy to authoritarianism through revolution is achieved with flying colours, but it is also quite tragically amusing how his work is mostly interpreted nowadays as a critique of anything anti-capitalist as a whole - despite Orwell himself being a democratic socialist. Given how far we are in the current globalized economy from the possibility of further communist revolutions and how close we became with strongmen nationalism, I'd say reading modern takes on authoritarianism like "How Democracies Die" by Ziblatt & Levitsky is more …

Revisting this Classic

4 stars

I first read this in year seven or year eight at secondary school. Back then, we would stop after each chapter and analyse what we had just read. I think back to those classes with much intellectual happiness and greatly miss being able to hear everyone's opinions about the different characters and their narrative directions. I asked a group of my friends the other day what they thought about Orwell and none of them knew who he was. I, then, mentioned Animal Farm and 1984 and got the same response. I'm not writing this to speak negatively on them (for I, still, have not read 1984) but I just think it's an interesting direction that society may be going towards. On another analyse of this same situation, I think it's also fascinating to understand the different books everyone had to read during their schooling. For me, it was predominantly Animal …

Clearly a preceeding work from George Orwell, reminiscent of his hit, 1984

5 stars

A much shorter and maybe even slightly more relatable dystopian story about a micro-society of intelligent farm animals turned authoritarianism. The story walks you through a process starting with great ideas for the common good, slowly perverted into one "persons" will.

A great, easy read that complimenets or perhaps precedes 1984. At least sets up the "early phase" of what 1984 portrays.