Paperback, 122 pages
English language
Published May 6, 2003 by NAL.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
Honestly I think I'm too old for this book. I think, for me, reading it as a young teenager probably would have been the era where I end up the most impressed. I don't think I particularly needed a lesson in safeguarding against totalitarianism, but the book is short and overly plain, making it perfect for an introduction into adult literature.
The basis and concept of Animal Farm have been reduplicated and pondered over so much at this point that the entire plot was extremely predictable. However, it still expresses it and makes you think in a way that is very profound, and I think with the context of the surface-level message (how social movements, especially Marxist ones, devolve) you're able to see some of the deeper analogies like the types of working class people that Boxer, the rats, Benjamin, etc. represent and how that informs one's ideology. That's what makes it a classic, and a must-read for anyone anywhere.
