Animal Farm by George Orwell

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Animal Farm is the most famous by far of all twentieth-century political allegories. Its account of a group of barnyard animals who revolt against their vicious human master, only to submit to a tyranny erected by their own kind, can fairly be said to have become a universal drama. Orwell is one of the very few modern satirists comparable to Jonathan Swift in power, artistry, and moral authority; in animal farm his spare prose and the logic of his dark comedy brilliantly highlight his stark message.
Taking as his starting point the betrayed promise of the Russian Revolution, Orwell lays out a vision that, in its bitter wisdom, gives us the clearest understanding we possess of the possible consequences of our social and political acts.
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I've arrived very late to this party and as such Animal Farm didn't teach me anything I didn't already know or hadn't heard before. However it was still a very interesting read and I'm glad I finally made the effort to read this short story which holds such high political and sociological value in both modern day and the past.

It's a very short story for such a big message, but had it been longer it would have been close to unreadable - as it is we're already hit over the head repeatedly with the point of it just to make sure that message gets through.

I loved the allegories used, and I loved what the animal represents. Irrationally my dislike for pigs grew after reading it. It's really something everyone should read, and I'm actually pretty sad we don't here in Denmark. It's not part of any curriculum in school; the time where I got closest to reading it was in High School/College (it's sort of the same in Denmark) but in Advanced English we chose to focus on Shakespeare and some other big names rather than this.

-- All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others --

89 pages / published in 1945

 Review by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2012