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Summary: It's Orwell!
Review: What interest's you in a book? Do crooks, twists and turns around every action intrigue you? Do you want the plot to be teeth grinding, lead you on through a tale of heroes and villains, Traumas and tragedies? Well....
If so I've got just the book for you It's called Animal Farm by George Orwell.
Old Major had a dream, a dream to lead all animals to power. Then in steps Napoleon and Snowball, watch them take a grasp for power and let the dream slip through their slimy trotters.
This novel a political allegory of the momentous events of the Russian Revolution was published in 1945.
This mind-boggling novel of adventures is targeted at the years 11 and above, but on the other hand Adults that have views on the Russian Revolution mat be intrigued.
The dream of power starts all so well, everyone trying equally hard, things running like clockwork then everything takes a horrible turn over Power Hungry animals.
My views on the book are that it is cleverly worded in a sophisticated language that people will take pleasure out of reading.
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Summary: The Ultimate Satire
Review: Animal Farm is a just a lovely and very easy book to read. One may just think it is a regular fairy tale at first glance but as you think on it, the hidden message, the subtle satire becomes apparent and pronounced. If you wonder "satire of what", then I strongly recommend you to read this book and find it out yourself. I admire Orwell`s ingenuity for transforming a fairy tale into a great literary success - that is the ultimate satire.Good job.
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Summary: Revolution of Greatness
Review: George Orwell's Animal Farm is a magnificent allegory of the Russian revolution in a thrilling short novel. Old Major, an old boar, speaks out his dream of an equal community of animals without the power hungry humans. As this dream becomes a reality characters change, like their great leader Napoleon ( a boar), who becomes more and more like the despised Farmer Jones, who was a tyrant at his time at the farm. Boxer (a horse) a loyal determined worker and Squealer a lying henchman of Napoleon cross destinies horribly. Napoleon rules murderously with evil henchmen at his side to make the other animals fear his presence everywhere. When you read the book you will feel the annoyances and the irritation when the pigs lie to the other animals. Orwell takes you on a roller coaster of emotion, which you never forget. The book is steeped in Soviet history, as if Orwell was a fortuneteller in his time. As you read the book you can see the writer knew a lot about the corruption of power. The novel is a great read for anyone who enjoys a good book even they it has the underlining of the momentous occasion, the Russian Revolution. Animal Farm can be read as a fairytale for the young majority but for the older readers a political novel, I fully advise anybody to read Animal Farm because of the sheer greatness that the pages echo.
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Summary: An allegory that so well describes the US in 2000-2004
Review: America in 2000-2004 is living out Animal Farm at this very moment. It's all here in this classic from 1945: terrorism, a 9/11, a rebuilding of a WTC-like symbol, a war on terror, an elusive Osama/Saddam evildoer to be hunted down, a Code-Orange-like level of threat alert, an Axis-of-Evil, use of fear and deception to keep the population confused and distracted, rhetoric about freedom and patriotism that somehow never ceases to do the trick, lies and misrepresentations, government by the wealthy elite for the wealthy elite, political spin-meisters, trained political attack dogs, a hard-working but uninformed and easily-misled population, a tax-paying class that does all the work while a political-corporate elite reaps all the rewards, the wholesale selling-out of the hardest-working for the profit of the few, the re-writing of rules and regulations for the blatant benefit of the few, the unfulfilled promise of trade for the benefit of all, the unfulfilled promise of trickle-down economics, the promise of retirement robbed, the trusting, idealistic population that somehow never catches on and never tires of giving their "heroic" leader the benefit of the doubt again and again. To view Animal Farm as only being about socialism, communism, and Stalinism in Russia, and thus not applicable to America and capitalism and democracy, would be to miss its message about plutocratic leaders, in any system, blatantly exploiting a trusting, optimistic population's faith in their cherished system and ideals. The same author also has another uncanny book on today's America called Nineteen Eighty-Four. It may well have been the source of inspiration for the naming of such Bush administration programs as "Homeland Security Department", "Clear Skies Initiative", and "Healthy Forest Initiative". Highly recommended, a definite must-read for all Americans.
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Summary: wonderful portrayal of stalinism
Review: Orwell wrote this book after expieriencing the communist party for himself while fighting in the POUM militia in the spanish civil war. The communist party are the reason for the loss of the socialists, anarchists, etc during the war, because the communist party suppressed their allie militias. They seeked only power in spain. At the time, people didn't realize what was going on in the soviet union. Many people respected stalin as a leader, including churchill who once called stalin a man of courage. Orwell wrote this book not as a way of discrediting socialism, but as a way to warn future generations about stalinism or soviet communism. He portrays the russian revolution and what went wrong. Often people, especially conservatives, believe Orwell was anti socialist, and they often refer this book to socialists. They are completely misunderstanding the novel. this book isn't an attack against socialism, as a matter of fact, Orwell was a socialist. Orwell explained this in his intro to the book when he originally wrote the book, but it wasn't allowed to be published.
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Summary: Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Review: On its deepest level Animal Farm is about a revolution of an oppressed class of beings (the farm animals) over their oppressors (the farmer). Orwell does this very creatively. Throughout the book the mood changes from glorious revolution of the animals all living in harmony together too a worse situation then when the farmer was in power. The pigs, by force of their army of dogs, use their positions to turn their rule over the other animals into a Stalin-like dictatorship.
This book points out the dangers of a system of government (socialism in this case) that is supposed to be great for all "comrades" but inevitably can turn horribly wrong by the corruption of the leaders.
I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in politics (it may make you question your own political leadership), the study of people in other positions of power or anyone who wants to read good literature in general.
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Summary: Not nearly as good as 1984
Review: With all the hype I was a little disappointed with Animal Farm. The premise is good - an allegory where farm animals take over their human masters, set up a government and satirise the excesses of left and right wing dictatorships in the process. However, it does get a little silly. And I don't mean that it's written a bit like a children's book or a fairy tale - that's the point. I think that the satire is often about as subtle as a sledgehammer. It is a tad repetitive which is ironic because it mocks the songs and anthems of the Animal Farm as repetitive propaganda. Seems that Orwell had some anti-propaganda propaganda of his own. The idea of the Animal Farm is a great one but would probably have been better as a short story. It just doesn't sustain the impact over 100 pages. To see a satire/allegory that does one only has to turn to the classic Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. So, an interesting book - but good, not great.
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Summary: Orwell was a Genius!!!
Review: This masterful book is similar to the greatest show in TV history, "The Simpsons." It makes fun of anything and everything, continues to be relevant, and can be enjoyed by various ages and types of people. Younger kids can read "Animal Farm" and see how power can be misused and the basic unfairness of life. Those who know about history can read the book and see the parallels to the Russian Revolution. Those reading the newspaper in 2004 can see a ruling class who SAY they care about the average worker, but who do nothing for them. Their slogan for all might read "All Americans are equal but some are more equal than others." Orwell's brilliance never fails to amaze me, which is why I don't ever forsee a time when this book is not completely relevant. And if that's not the definition of a CLASSIC, I don't know what is!!
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Summary: The pigs are invading...
Review: This book by George Orwell is about a farm (Manor Farm) where a revolution takes place, but a very DIFFERENT kind of revolution. Mr. Jones, the owner of the farm, had been mistreating his livestock, and the animals were absolutely sick of it. Old Major, the oldest boar on the farm, inspired them with a song and a speech about how everything should be blamed on men. Then he dies, leaving Napoleon and Snowball, two young boars, in the position of power. They revolt, due to Farmer Jones not feeding them, and invent a new system of government where all animals are equal, everyone can get an education, and everyone works for the common good. Snowball and Napoleon are in conflict all the time, though, and Snowball gets run off while the animals are voting on whther to build a windmill or not. Napoleon and Squealer, his propaganda minister, slowly and steadily convince the animals that Snowball is a terrible, terrible pig and very cowardly, even though he was the best of the two, and all the animals that object are murdered. Napoleon makes deals with humans, but he gets cheated by one of the humans. At the end, all the pigs, who had moved up to a position of power, and all the humans, who had debased themselves, all looked and acted exactly the same. The pigs even dressed up in people-clothes and paraded around on their hind legs. The purpose of this book is to tell of the evils of Communism; it usually starts out okay, but eventually ends up in totalitarianism. (I did a book study on this). Old Major represents Karl Marx, Napoleon represents Stalin, Snowball=Lenin, and Farmer Jones the czar of Russia. When this book was published, people thought that it was ridiculous, but then when they figured out that it was about the Russian Revolution, everyone realized exactly how brilliant it really was. If you're interested in history or classics, I really recommend this.
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Summary: Animal Farm
Review: I found that the book Animal Farm was a bigger "American Classic " than I thought it was going to be. The book was written by George Orwell, which in turn was a pen name for the writer Eric Blair. He was born in India but educated and raised as an Englishmen. The book overall was great. It definitely had a good flow to it yet it still kept you on the edge of your seat waiting to read what strange thing happened next.
Orwell has a line in the very beginning of the book that is stated by the animals of the farm "man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He doesn't not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull plough, and he can not run fast enough to catch rabbits, yet he is the lord of all animals". That line was my immediate realization that the book was going to be at least half way good. The book consists of a large group of farm animals that can apparently talk. They decide to take over the farm on one huge swift operation. After successfully taking over the farm in the very early part of the book, the remainder of the story basically consists of them surviving and getting through life. One flaw that the story does have is the lack in explaining obvious obstacles for animals. Them having total hatred for humans being able to read write and logically hold a farm is a little too much to believe. The entire basis of fact and fiction shouldn't necessarily be thrown together. Having animals speak but at the same time having the rest of the story and its plots completely believable. To me, having animals building a windmill in a story that's supposed to be true is very much out of question. All of this even coming to the animals having a set of seven commandments. 1. Whatever goes upon to legs is an enemy. 2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. 3. No animal shall wear clothes. 4. No animal shall sleep in a bed. 5. No animal shall drink alcohol. 6. No animal shall kill any other animal. 7. All animals are equal. The commandments and multiple other lines being written on the barn of the wall by a set of very intelligent pigs is too much for a serious book. One thing that did make it a well-rounded book is the fact that you could direct this book to many different audiences. It has the appeal to kids with the talking animals and doesn't have extremely hard grammar. On the other hand, it still has the maturity level of an adult. Another flaw about the book is the fact that not much of it changes. The characters (all the animals) tend to do the same stuff over and over again. They wake up and work everyday, and have a big meeting on Sunday where the flag signifying their freedom is raised. Not too much changes besides the obvious small and brief problems. The animals tend to also die off way too much. Animals seemed as though they were unlimited.
Overall the book was great. George Orwell is a fantastic writer. I would definitely read his other books. Although a lot could have improved this one, I think overall his book was good.
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