ANIMAL FARM

This is a guest review from my fifteen-year-old grandson, Kai O:

George Orwell uses the animals of Manor Farm to re-enact the Russian Revolution of 1917. Throughout the book, I found myself drawing connections from the farm to the actual events. At first, I was a little bit annoyed at this because I kept stopping every few pages or so to compare the story to real life. This got in the way of my overall enjoyment of the book. Later, I realized that George Orwell’s book was so skillfully written that I couldn’t help but find deeper meaning. Animal Farm was written in 1945, so the theme in this book seemed unimportant. But as the saying goes, those who don’t remember their past are doomed to repeat it.

The story begins with Old Major, a respected senior boar, calling all the animals (living on the farm) to a meeting in the barn. Once the meeting begins, Old Major tells the animals his dream for the future of Manor Farm. The old boar tells the animals of a farm where the animals rule themselves, and most importantly, he teaches the whole farm a song called, The Beast of England. This would be the rallying cry of the animal’s revolution. Old Major dies...but his original ideas live on. Quickly the animals revolt against their human oppressor, Mr. Jones. Soon Manor Farm is theirs and renamed Animal Farm. The pigs, being the smartest animals on the farm, became the masterminds behind the running of the farm, while the other animals took to the fields.

The animals now reign supreme on the farm. There are seven commandants behind animalism, but the sheep boil it down to, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” How will animalism fair when put into practice? If you know anything about the Russian Revolution, you have probably drawn a few conclusions. George Orwell gets straight to the point. Animal Farm isn’t a very long book, but every page added to the story. In my opinion, there are no boring parts in this book. Overall, Animal Farm is a quick read that would help anyone visualize what happened in the Russian Revolution. I would recommend this book to anyone twelve years old and older.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Excellent short, but to the point review! As Kai gets older, he seems to dig deeper into the author’s mind to understand the true meaning of what the author is trying to say. I think he succeeded in this review.

I believe that it’s obvious that Orwell intended the Old Major to be Karl Marx; Napoleon, the pig, to be Joseph Stalin; and Boxer, the workhorse, the hard working peasant (serf). Snowball, the other pig, was the loser in a power struggle with Napoleon.