Amazon.com:
Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers'
revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the
Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report
About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled
by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal
Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging
story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden
beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over
management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone
willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief,
glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment
credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are
equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed,
or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs
or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the
enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves
leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations
of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole
management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night,
we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we
drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood
sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to
excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again
left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans
ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who
remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his
all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the
pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the
history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air
of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson
Book Description:
ANIMAL FARM was George Orwell's satirical shot at the then-new
totalitarianism of the left. It is so accurate that no one has been
able to do it better or more effectively, or even come close. Who can
forget "All Animals Are Created Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than
Others." By putting wisdom in the mouths of animals, Orwell uses an
age-old artifice and proves again how the pen can be mightier than
the sword.
From the Back Cover:
A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With
flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a
paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set
for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned---a razor-edged
fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution
against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. When
Animal Farm was first published fifty years ago, Stalinist
Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear
that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever
banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell's
masterpiece has a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.
