Manor Farm to Animal Farm (and Back Again)

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	• Animal Farm (Signet Classics) George Orwell Signet Classics, 1996 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 1152 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Classic

Before reviewing the content, let the reader beware that this novel is competely allegorical and SHOULD NOT BE READ WITHOUT PROPER AQUAINTANCE WITH THE HISTORY OF THE USSR. That being said, I read, prior to rereading this work, Ronal Grigory Suny's works on the USSR, which were a bit thick (over 500 pages each). This is necessary for a proper appreciation of the work. Every character is representative of a historical personality. If you don't know who Molotov, Stalin, Trotsky, Hitler, Nicholas II, Stakhanovites and Pravda are, then you should find out BEFORE reading this work to properly enjoy it. If you read the book for a moral message, you miss a major point of the work; you can get the moral message "Don't become what you hate" through reading any other book without these allusions. This entire novel is built off of allegory.

Now, that being said, there are a few flaws that need to be discussed. Orwell treatment of the USSR can be simple and bias, and its unfortunate. He is at least accurate in depicting the accuracy in the rise of literacy of the Soviet peoples, but his treatment of such a complex subject in a 90 page fable isn't going to be comprehensive. Still, there is demonization at work to quite an extent, and it must be realized that READING THIS BOOK WILL NOT MAKE YOU AN EXPERT IN SOCIALISM.

Some of the introductory comments were extremely irritating. The notion that the collapse of the USSR was "unavoidable," that the USSR hardly did anything good for the Soviet people and the idiotic analysis of Hitler's invasion of the USSR was seriously irritating. If you aren't a history fanatic you will miss these points, but seriously, COMMUNISM IS NOT RED FASCISM.

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classic contribution

Definitely a piece of its time. When I first read this its effect was like that of a children's tale not because of the animal characters but because children's tales have a dark moral built into them to warn children not to talk to strangers or to go to strange places by themselves. I could picture the readers of its time feeling very much cowed (pardon the pun) into the kind of thinking that perhaps led to the hardening of the cold war. Today, the value of this piece is akin to say, an impressionist painting by what they have contributed to their respective fields.

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I see why this is a classic.

I see why this book is such a classic! It is so short, I'd call it a short story rather than a novel. It is a quick read, and very hard to put down. I highly recommend this book.

Manor Farm to Animal Farm (and Back Again)

I enjoyed this book when I read it in high school, but at the time I thought it was a satire of communism in general. After a recent second reading, however, I believe Animal Farm isn't a criticism of leftist thought so much as a charming (but ruthless) satire of the USSR in particular. In fact, to me the book ultimately makes the point that, if revolutions are to succeed and tyranny is to be avoided, the people must learn to chuck their new leaders as soon as the revolution has been accomplished, otherwise the result is totalitarianism (as Orwell himself put it).

So it wasn't the revolution or the initial principles of "animalism" that Orwell was warning against...it was the fact that the revolutionary leaders inevitably abused their power, manipulated information, rewrote history, and perverted the principles underpinning the revolution until the animal regime was far more brutal and oppresive than Farmer Jones had been. (It helps to remember here that Orwell was a self-described democratic socialist.) But in the final analysis, I believe Animal Farm has a broader application: it seems to suggest that this kind of thing could happen under any political system if power goes unchecked or unmonitored for too long. Highly Recommended.

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a classic in the truest sense

I read this over 20 years ago in highschool and loved it then. Reading it again now...I still loved it. This is such a great book for young minds. Not only to learn the sense of communism, rebellion, fear and tyranny but also to fall in love with symbolsm. This little book with so few pages and words is filled to the brim with symbolic moments and matter. It is timeless.

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