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Summary: Funny animal story
Review: A concise, palatable explication of how communism "evolves" (?) into totalitarianism. It entertains as it instructs and manages to evoke a sense of genuine anger against the oppressors that a drier treatment would not achieve.
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Summary: Animal Farm
Review: Animal Farm is a book that takes place on a Manor Farm which was renamed to Animal Farm do to the rebeling against the pigs owner, Mr.Jones. The Animal Farm was run by Old Major who was inspired by the first great vision of a scoialist utopia for animals beginning the fervor that leads to the Rebellion. Old Major dies three days after he tells the animals his vision, which leads to the battle between Snowball and Napoleon. These two pigs head the farm and also disagree on everything. Snowball and Napoleon battle on who will be the next leader of Animal Farm. One day, as the animals are about to vote on the building of a windmill,that Snowball supports and Napoleon opposes, Napoleon decides to have Snowball driven off the farm. From that point on, Snowball becomes a scapegoat whenever anything goes wrong on the farm. As time goes on, the pigs begin to break many of the original principles and Commandments of their Rebellion. This is justified by slight changes in the Seven Commandments and explainations from Squealer, a particular persuasive pig who also favors Napoleon. Squealer also tries to convince the animals on the farm that the memories of the past are inncorrect. Eventually, as more times passes the new leader of the farm changes the name back to Manor Farm as it was when the book began.
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Summary: The Battle of Two Pigs
Review: Animal Farm is a book which takes place on a Manor Farm, which was renamed to Animal Farm do to the rebeling aginst there owner Mr.Jones. Which was inspired by the dream of Old Major,a boar who has the first great vision of a socialist utopia for animals, beginning the fervor that leads to the Rebellion. Old Major dies three days after he tells the animals his vision.This leades to the battle. The two pigs that head the farm are Napoleon and Snowball who disagree on everything.The two battle on who will be the next leader of Animal Farm.One day, as the animals are about to vote on the building of a windmill that Snowball supports and Napoleon opposes. Napoleon decides to have Snowball driven off the farm. From that point on, Snowball becomes a scapegoat whenever anything goes wrong on the farm. As time goes on,the pigs begin to break many of the original principles and Commandments of their Rebellion. This is justified by slight changes in the Seven Commandments and explanations from Squealer,a particularly persuasive pig who is also on Napoleons side. Squealer also tries to convince the animals of the farm that the memories of the past are incorrect. Eventually,as more time passes the new leader of the farm changes the name back to Manor Farm much as it was when the book began.
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Summary: awesome read
Review: i love reading.i read this book in school. its the only book i have ever really LOVED.
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Summary: Excellent educational lesson
Review: A story of an animal overtake of a farm is an excellent lesson on government. George Orwell creates multiple characters which each have a different symbolical representation. Similar to the lessons learned in "Lord of the Flies", this tale of pigs attempting to run a farm under the first attempt of communism, gives Orwells opinions on the success of differnet forms of government. This is a classic tale for younger kids who wish to read a good story while learning much about differnt forms of todays government.
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Summary: Four legs (stars) good, two legs bad
Review: I'm going to be a little different and give Animal Farms fours stars instead of five. I liked the book well enough, that's for sure. It is a very powerful little book (mine is 128 paperback pages) with political ramifications throughout. It would help if you understood history and political science, especially from the days when Orwell wrote this (1946). I give it four stars because, when I first finished the book in an English class, I was not fulfilled. Was it for politics sake? Was it to get by senior English? (Since then, I've taught the book to high school sophomores who, by the way, would probably also not give it five stars if they were polled). I don't know. It's certainly worth a read, though, and it might not be a bad idea to have the Cliff Notes near-by. It will illumine any number of symbolic meanings as you read the adventures of Napolean, Snowball, and Farmer Jones. Finally, check out the 1960s cartoon Animal Farm. It's a student favorite! Baaaaaaah.
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Summary: Animal farm, human school
Review: Amazing how such a small book can contain. Yes, humanity has always been so eager to believe what the leaders said that it has often blinded itself (and will again and again). A fable that actually works. An introduction to Orwell/Blair, that I do find more brilliant than 1984 in its sharpness. Definitely worth reading, and probably re-reading again and again.
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Summary: Horses or Frogs?
Review: One of the marks of a great work of literature is that it can be read on different levels. George Orwell's Animal Farm is such a work. We can read it as a child's fable or as a description of the 1917 Russian Revolution with Snowball-Trotski, Napoleon-Stalin, Old Major-Lenin (or is it Marx?) and Squealer-a collection of various Stalinist toadies- providing the history lesson. That can be instructive and we come away feeling that we understand the fundamental dynamics of totalitarianism, in all quite contented with ourselves. That would however be missing the most important point for Americans today that is brought out in the book. Dictatorship doesn't arise in one fateful moment, people don't become manipulated pawns overnight, rights are not eroded or even reversed with one blatant stroke of a pen on a governmental decree. If anything the history of 20th Century dictatorships shows us that this is a gradual process as in Orwell's book. Napoleon's plans are put into effect slowly; the laws are changed methodically one by one, at night when the animals are asleep. History itself is taken away and washed of any conflicting elements that displease the powers in control or bring up uncomfortable questions. Gross inequalities are said to be necessary, unavoidable, even positive, while a strong police presence backed with cruel punishments discourage any overt opposition. The most important element of control is to convince the people that things are "better" than before without actually telling them what the "before" was like. Convince them that theirs is the best of all possible worlds without really comparing it to anything else. Arouse their sense of patriotism and use popular symbols to distract and confuse. All this is shown in the book to be very effective in establishing and maintaining control, all the while the real condition of the animals/citizens only worsens, the manipulation and domination only becomes more obvious, more difficult to rationalize and explain away. Now for the clincher - How has OUR country changed in the last 20 years? Are we as a people more manipulated and dominated by unseen and unaccountable plutocratic elites, less in control of our supposedly democratic government than in 1980? Are we, the common people, not confronted today with a far more refined, more subtle type of control and domination, which allows us steadily decreasing room to move about, a constantly constricting pen so to speak, whose artificial veneer of "liberty" is wearing increasingly thin? Is it even allowed in polite company to pose such questions? A biologist friend of mine tells me that if a frog is put into a pan of hot water it will jump out, but put the same frog in a pan of cool water and gradually increase the temperature to boiling, the frog will stay in the pan until his eyes burst. Perhaps we Americans should ask ourselves where we are, metaphorically speaking, in the Animal Farm herarchy. Are we at least hard-working horses who occasionally question what is done supposedly in our name, or are we simple frogs, sweating now, only semi-sentient, but still smug and stupid in our belief that things will only get better?
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Summary: Orwell's adult tale
Review: Marketed as a children's tale due to its central characters, this book is a dense text, as is 1984 (he spent more time composing this than his masterpiece). A great tale chalk full Orwell nondidactically telling us, excuse me, showing us the world for the first time once again. Nietzsche's herd appears in the form of a "flock" of sheep. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A fable for every generation to learn from.
Review: I read this book last year for school, and quickly became entranced with it. So far, its the best book I have ever read (but that may changes since I'm getting very into literature, and reading more). It left me with a lesson about socialism that I'll never forget. Truly amazing.
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