Animal Farm - Book Review

Animal Farm - This is a short story written by George Orwell in 1945.

Though I knew that it was and is a very famous work, I never had the chance to read it. Few months back, I got a copy of the book. But due to inevitable circumstances, I kept procrastinating reading the book. Finally, when I read the book, I liked it so much that I read it twice! It is around 45 pages in all and a good gripping read.

The book must have been written during the time communist philosophy was fighting for its rightful place in the modern world. The author brilliantly used the metaphor of animals versus human, 4 legged versus 2 legged, to bring out the tussle between the proletariat and the bourgeois.

In a farm in England, owned by a man called Jones, lived many animals. The author excellently portrays the characters of the different animals, Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer, the pigs, Boxer, Clover, and Mollie, the horses etc. He describes how they look like, their features, idiosyncrasies and even their way of speaking.  One day, the animals decide to take over the operations. They successfully stage a coup and seize power from the human owners of the farm, driving them out of the farm.

The humans try to take over the farm few times later. But the animals successfully defend their territory. The story goes on to show power struggle between 2 dominant pigs and how one of them is overthrown. The story illustrates how the message to the masses are twisted, how opinions are changed and others are made to believe what the leader wants them to!!

Finally, all the animals find themselves as slaves to the pigs, who had assumed themselves to be the owners, who had started living like humans and walked on 2 legs. The animals were then even worse off than when they were under their human masters.

Overall, it is an exceptionally brilliant piece of work. This a must read if you like to understand politics, public opinion shaping, and if you savour exquisite usage of English.