Animal Farm by George Orwell (BOOK REVIEW) 5/5

A wonderful satire of the real-life Soviet Union’s rule, George Orwell risked life and limb for this banned book: And it was worth it. I don’t think it should be a banned book, this is something everyone needs to read at least once. Short and sweet, Animal Farm depicts the indoctrination of a regime, and how easy it can be to control the minds of others over time. He uses it, charmingly, with animals- who are shown to have shortened memory among different species. Primarily, the smartest are the pigs, who take charge of the rebellion against the humans. Orwell, not so subtly, was calling officers of the Soviet Union pigs, even using terms like “Comrade” to further the point. The more innocent, slow-minded animals were thrown into the follower role under the command of the pigs. If you don’t know the history behind Orwell writing this book, you should go find out, because it makes all the more sense.

At first, everything is great; they overthrow the human, they band together, they create a just and righteous set of commandments and decide to live proudly as animals, no longer in need of a human. This is not how it stays, however. Admittedly, I want to keep this review short, because I think those who haven’t read it need to go into it themselves. But I’ll say this:

This story is drastically educational towards real life and how easy it is to be a follower and see things start to slip. What once was a great deal may start to turn sour- and it’s important to recognize when it does. This book is filled with cute moments (“Four legs good, two legs bad!”) and devastating moments (“I will work harder!”), and it will leave you changed as a person once you read it. Banned, it may be, but some of the most important things in life are done without permission. I cannot recommend this highly enough, it’s a masterpiece of a novel, simply written and heavy in consequence.