Book Review: Animal Farm by George Orwell

Title: Animal Farm
Author: George Orwell
Publication:  1996, Signet Classics
Format: Paperback, 140 pages
Source: Borrowed from a schoolmate (Thank you Joemar!)
Buy it on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | Kobo | National Book Store / Fully Booked (PH)

SYNOPSIS:

As ferociously fresh as it was more than a half century ago, this remarkable allegory of a downtrodden society of overworked, mistreated animals and their quest to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality is one of the most scathing satires ever published. As readers witness the rise and bloody fall of the revolutionary animals, they begin to recognize the seeds of totalitarianism in the most idealistic organization and in the most charismatic leaders, the souls of the cruelest oppressors.

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Misfit Review:

While I grabbed the novel one fine day, I didn't know what exactly came over me. I was definitely interested to read it but I wasn't fully invested on the thought of reading it so early. But I still did and boy was I wrong.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Ladies and gentlemen, Animal Farm is the story that will clear your head and fill you with laughter and also the realization that the world is full of egotistical scumbags, "pigs" if you will, and that long before, then have been pulling our legs with much chagrin.

“Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.”

Animal Farm is a satirical take on the totalitarianism that spread over so long ago. The animals take over the farm from the humans and fight for what is right, but consequences happened. George Orwell decided that to make a mockery it, he decided to represent the officials and the people as animals. The pigs represented the leaders, the dogs are the soldiers while the other farm animals posed as the ostracized humans, slaved for years. 

I was never a fan of discussing politics because it always disgusts me. I would rather read a 5 year old's picture book than listen to government officials bicker and pride themselves for what they've done. But the satirical element dragged me from my disinterest and read the novel.

I was disgusted with the pigs, particularly Squealer. Why must a character exist in a novel, but then again, that's the power of it all. To open our eyes towards the problem. Squealer was meant to be hated. Orwell got to me again.

The different situations captured in the book such as the windmill, the attacks on the farm and the deceit, represented real life situations that I wish I was more familiar with so I would've been more insightful, which was the reason why it took me a while to finish the book but still, it was indeed an eye opener. 

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

The characters were either annoying or pitiful. You know at some point you can't root for them to have a better life. You know that throughout the course of the book. Orwell went for the simple route to narrate it simply, write conspiracies that are delusional and quite funny. His style is not like most I have read and also I'm not very familiar with satire novels, more on films. Again, his writing was collected, not all too dramatic, but drew an impact up until the end. Seriously, read the end. It is worth it.

Animal Farm will open up doors for a better understanding of human nature and that deception definitely works on the gullible.

About The Author:

Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.

Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism and poetry. He is best known for the dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (published in 1949) and the satirical novella "Animal Farm" (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His 1938 book "Homage to Catalonia", an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with numerous essays on politics, literature, language, and culture, are widely acclaimed.

Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues decades after his death. Several of his neologisms, along with the term "Orwellian" — now a byword for any oppressive or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society — have entered the vernacular.


Thank you for your support Misfit Booknerds! I'm sorry if I have been on a reviewing slump lately, but I will make it up this week. I will post a few reviews till the end of the month so please, be patient!