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Summary: A fantastic and fascinating book
Review: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal then others". George Orwell's novel is surely one of the best books by the author. The author makes you enter into the story, with its marvellous descriptions.
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Summary: Mano a mano between Orwell and Steadman
Review: This is the best edition you're ever gonna get of the great Orwell classic. Not only the illustrations are superb, it includes an essay, by Orwell, about the freedom of the press which is truly a masterpiece amid today's abundance of intolerant politically-correct nonsense.And, take my word as a professional cartoonist for 25 years, RALPH STEADMAN IS GOD!!!
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Summary: A Great Book but a Little Hard To Follow
Review: This is a wonderful book that can be looked at in two ways: allegorical or as a barn-yard story. I, because I was only 13 when I read it, saw it as just a story, yet it still entertained me.
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Summary: A wonderful timeless story every human being should read....
Review: I read Animal Farm for my 8th grade literature class. I read another review and noticed how someone recommended this book "only for adults". I must disagree! Animal Farm is an incredible work, both as a fairy story and an allegory for politics. I wrote an essay on Animal Farm's political references and how a few characters symbolize famous dictators of the twentieth century (for example, the one character Napoleon, a pig, symbolizes Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini all at once, I won't go into it here). Anyway, I'll just had that I got an A on the essay. READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!
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Summary: Superb political allegory
Review: I first read this book without really considering its message but I loved it anyway and thought it was a great story. However the lasting impression is its excellent satire of comtemporary society in Russia under Stalin, and this has obviously made it a favourite for American high school indoctrination. It is not really a satire on other Communist societies and Marxist philosophy in general, but more a chilling criticism of the betrayal of idealism in Russia by 1945 with implicit references to Stalinism throughout the book. But whether you appreciate the political side of it or are looking for a great story it is either way an excellent read.
Rating: 
Summary: This was an O.K. Book.
Review: I enjoyed reading this book, sort of. It was really hard to follow, especially in the middle. I wouldn't reccomend it. The only reason I read ot was because I had to for Reading class. I guess the book is really meant for adults. If you were older, then you might understand more of the symbolism and stuff like that. (I am only 13). Let's just say, I wouln't reccomend it to anyone under, lets say 14 or 15.
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Summary: Animal Farm
Review: I remember reading this book as a child, and taking it on face value as a story about some animals who took over a farm. As children's stories go this is quite realistic. I had no idea that I was reading a literary classic. I think in many ways this gave an impact and fascination to reading the story as a teenager, and discovering it's deeper levels, that I would otherwise not have experienced. Orwell's linguistic philosophy, less is more, makes this book accessible to the upper end of the Junior School. For this reason I have decided to include it in my folder. The story, in case you didn't know, involves a farm, Manor Farm. I always imagined it was in Cornwall, but I guess I did grow up there. The farmer treats the all the animals badly, except for the dogs of course. The animals, lead by the pigs - being supposedly the most intelligent farm animal, revolt and take over the farm. The animals decide to redefine the boundaries of what a farm can be. To make farm where everyone is equal, where everyone does just what he can and receives just what he needs. Animal Farm. There is a power struggle between the two leading pigs Napoleon and Snowball. Snowball is chased out of the farm, never to return. From then on the farm gradually descends into a familiar pattern of the oppressed and the oppressors. By the end of the book we are asking ourselves what has changed from when the humans ran the farm. He looked from man to pig, and from pig to man. But already it was impossible to tell which was which. I would assume that you know that the book is a parable of the Russian Revolution, and of revolutions in general. It is quite specific in comparisons. Napoleon and Snowball represent Stalin and Trotsky. Squealer represents the media. Boxer is the uneducated but committed peasant, and the burning of his hat is the destruction of much of that would have been useful to the revolution. I could go on but I shan't. I would be surprised if many 9 year olds pick up on this alternative level of comprehension, and even more surprised if they were interested if it was pointed out to them. The book taken literally however has a lot to offer children. It deals with themes with which they are all familiar. Trust and betrayal. Fear, bullying, anger. Right and wrong. Justice and injustice. The same questions can be asked of the book, but without realising the comparison with the Russian Revolution. Just because thing didn't work out, did that make the animals wrong to revolt in the first place? Could things have turned out differently, or were thing bound to turn out as they did? Above all else though Animal farm is a well written, well told story, which many children would enjoy.
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Summary: A book for all to read!
Review: A lot of the things I treasure about the book have already been said, but a big issue to me in the book, was how it so accurately portrayed through metaphores, the exact way things in history happened! It definitely makes you stare at it in a different light, since rather than being a part of it (well, part of the human race), your looking down at it all. "Ignorance is bliss...", a quote I've heard many people say to me. This book proves that quote wrong though. All the animal followers of the pigs, do not have minds for themselves! Communism couldn't have gotten as far as it had, if people had just thought for themselves, and hadn't had the attitude of especially Boxer who would always say, "Napolean is always right.". They just accepted their rules and their commandments. Most of the animals could not read either, which became a major problem when it came to the way the rules were made. This was one point I thought it portrayed greatly...the importance of education...if we are ignorant and just go along with whatever the speaker/leader is talking about (when Snowball was still there, it was said that the animals always seemed to believe whoever was talking at the time), then things like this are pronned to happen.
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Summary: Ludicrously fictictional yet fun to read.
Review: George Orwell's novel was in fact an expression of his views towards totalitarianism, i.e. a satire. However because the storyline was so insanely bizarre in and of itself, it became impossible for the reader to tell when the events of the novel had an underlying message and when they didn't. It was easy to pick up, and the anctics of the animals made it a book that the reader wanted to finish, but Orwell's subtly expressed views of totalitarianism were totally overshadowed and ignored as the reader incessantly wonders, " Am I missing something here?"
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Summary: Perfectly argued, but one minor flaw
Review: Animal Farm is a perfectly argued description of how revolutions decay and are corrupted. The pigs (the Russian Communist Party)gradually and logically become worse than the inefficient old oppressors. The flaw I see is that Orwell was still seeing Communism as a "revolution betrayed", not as something unavoidably and intrinsicly wrong and doomed - as I think T.S. Eliot said, it is almost as if Orwell believed the problem might have been solved by more public-spirited pigs. But despite this criticism, Animal Farm is not only a great book, written in a perfect and limpid style, but essential reading for understanding our world and the history of the Twentieth Century, as well as a timeless warning.
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