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A review by boezaaah
Animal Farm by George Orwell
5.0
“Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than just ribbons?”
Animal Farm is the story of a revolution by which the humans of Manor Farm are overthrown by the animals, in hope of achieving a future life free of slavery and labour under humans. George Orwell used this revolution as an allegory for the Russian Revolution, with each of the characters in his story representing either a specific political figure, or someone/something effected by the events.
The first time I ever read it was through the audiobook, in a room full of agitated and annoyed year 10 English students and frankly, we all fell asleep multiple times while listening to it. The narrator was boring, my teacher interrupted it every 5 seconds, and our class had not learned anything about the Russian Revolution. How can you read a book based on political satire if you understand nothing that's being mocked?
This time reading it was because I had an narrative due, in which I was to write a scene into Animal Farm using techniques that Orwell used, and to make my writing sound as much like his style as possible. Now, that's pretty difficult to do when you've only barely listened to the audiobook. So I took it upon myself to reread and annotate EVERYTHING. And I absolutely loved it.
Something is so enchanting about the way Orwell strives to get his message across. His simplistic writing style makes this easy to read, but never boring, due to his humorous satire. The underlying meaning and truth behind his words make the reading experience interesting, and made me do my own research on the Russian Revolution, which I found just as fascinating.
This story of hypocrisy, hierarchy and politics, is made an essential piece of literature for any kind of reader. It’s themes remain relevant to any period of time and everyone can take something away from this read. I look forward to going into more of Orwell's works, and I have every reason to assume I'll love all of it.
Animal Farm is the story of a revolution by which the humans of Manor Farm are overthrown by the animals, in hope of achieving a future life free of slavery and labour under humans. George Orwell used this revolution as an allegory for the Russian Revolution, with each of the characters in his story representing either a specific political figure, or someone/something effected by the events.
The first time I ever read it was through the audiobook, in a room full of agitated and annoyed year 10 English students and frankly, we all fell asleep multiple times while listening to it. The narrator was boring, my teacher interrupted it every 5 seconds, and our class had not learned anything about the Russian Revolution. How can you read a book based on political satire if you understand nothing that's being mocked?
This time reading it was because I had an narrative due, in which I was to write a scene into Animal Farm using techniques that Orwell used, and to make my writing sound as much like his style as possible. Now, that's pretty difficult to do when you've only barely listened to the audiobook. So I took it upon myself to reread and annotate EVERYTHING. And I absolutely loved it.
Something is so enchanting about the way Orwell strives to get his message across. His simplistic writing style makes this easy to read, but never boring, due to his humorous satire. The underlying meaning and truth behind his words make the reading experience interesting, and made me do my own research on the Russian Revolution, which I found just as fascinating.
This story of hypocrisy, hierarchy and politics, is made an essential piece of literature for any kind of reader. It’s themes remain relevant to any period of time and everyone can take something away from this read. I look forward to going into more of Orwell's works, and I have every reason to assume I'll love all of it.