Sean Barrs 's Reviews > Animal Farm

I revisited Animal Farm recently and my opinions remain the same.

George Orwell leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. This is a blatant political statement. There’s no reading between the lines in order to ascertain the meaning, it’s all here on the page. After around page twenty it was very obvious how this book would end. History repeats itself and in this case it goes full circle. Nothing changes. And a wise old Donkey was the only one in the piece aware of this. We can presume he has seen it before, though, on a character level he was a bit of an ass not to tell anybody what was coming. See what I did there? I’m good. I know.

The problem I had with Animal Farm is that I could not engage with it. The characters aren’t really characters. The setting isn’t really a setting. And the plot isn’t really a plot. They are all mere devices, a means for Orwell to blurt out his political statement. The entire book is one big author filibuster, an entire situation and a group of characters created for the simple reason of showing Orwell’s opposition to communism and, more specifically, the Stalin regime. It’s cleverly written, and it is funny at times, but such direct authorial intention took something away from the reading experience. I couldn’t lose myself within the writing.

The pigs were used as an insult to mankind. Their leader Napoleon (aptly named?) slowly distances the pigs from the animals of the revolution. They begin to take on the traits of humans, and after a few chapters they have set themselves up as the thing they originally usurped. They become corrupt and driven by money and profit. They’re above their peers, ultimately, destroying their own aims. By doing this Orwell is calling humans pigs; he is calling post-revolutionaries pigs. For me reading this, this was more of an insult to pigs than humans. Pigs are lovely animals. (Nicer than humans?) The metaphor certainly relies much on the reader’s interpretation of what a pig is.

That’s me just being pedantic and silly, but I guess I just like pigs. And I feel like I’ve read Animal Farm before. I feel like I know this story, and that’s because it is the history of mankind; it is the history of revolution. So, needless to say, Orwell has captured a large sense of this on the page. When it has been read, it is definitely something that cannot be unread. The allegory is pertinent and, in a sense, an almost pessimistic truism, though the inner romantic in me finds such a defeatist attitude, well, defeating.

It’s undoubtedly very intelligent writing, but I just didn’t enjoy it. When I read literature, whether it be poetry, play or novel, I like imagining things; I like coming up with my own interpretation, meaning, or criticisms. With this, Orwell has said it all. I feel like I didn’t need to read it, a plot summary would have given me everything the writing did.

- This is the first book I read on my 2017 reading challenge, I hope I enjoy the others more!