Welcome, one and all! Pull up a chair, grab a mug and mix it up, if that's what you're into. We've got a veritable classic today, from 1946. Animal Farm by George Orwell is a cautionary satire, regarded as a fairy-tale for adults. I have heard of it being taught in schools, but we didn't read it when I was in school. We did read Watership Down, and there are similarities.
George Orwell is perhaps better known for writing 1984, a dark, gritty, dystopian tale about a future where the government controls and watches everything. The scary parts of 1984, of course were the propaganda and some of the control methods used, because despite the cautioning of this and related authors, we can still see echoes of these things in our modern world. Animal Farm takes a different angle than 1984, looking at the hypothetical beginnings of totalitarian control rather than planting the reader in the midst.
In Animal Farm, an elderly pig has a dream in which he is free from violence and slave labor, and realizes that the animals he lives with at Manor Farm in England are miserable, hungry, and not looked after. He gathers the animals together and tells them that they need to rebel, and teaches them a song from his childhood that he had forgotten until he had his dream. A couple months later he passes away, and a couple months after that the animals, after going unfed due to the drunken farmer's nonsense, revolt and drive all of the people from the farm. Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, take over. Apparently, it is known that pigs are the most intelligent of animals, and thus they are able to take over the administrative duties of the farm without argument. They cannot agree on anything themselves, however, which leads them from the democratic republic that Snowball tries to establish to the totalitarian system that Napoleon would install.
A fast read, Animal Farm is both cutting and witty. The characters, while all animals, mirror the facets of human community with great accuracy. The story is simple, with limited setting and steady timeline. Everything happens on the farm within a decade. It is not exactly clear how long the events take to pass, but there are animals that survive from beginning to end. I would recommend this book to anyone, particularly children that show any interest in voting or politics. That way, they can at least look out for the demons in suits before their soldiers are beating down their doors.
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