All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

[Yeltsu]

As the title suggests I just read Animal Farm by George Orwell. I read it as my reading assignement in my english class. Now, I finishied it in two days and I'll probably read it two more times, as I love that book. I simply love it, it is beutifully written as everything else by Geore Orwell. For those who doesn't know it, this book is a metaphore to what happened in Soviet under Stalin (or any totalitary[sp?] state) I also think it resembles Nineteen Eight-Four as well.

So what are your thoughts on this book? Do you love it as I do? Or don't you like it? And most importantly, why? I'd like to get as many opinions as possible so please post yours regarding this book.¨

And don't worry that I'll put your opinions in my book review, because I won't. I already have enough things to write there

[Locke Da'averan]

well does seeing the animation count? because that one was great and what made it more hilarious was the fact that such things have actually happened. of course it was tragic but the cartoon was great. i liked it but if movie doesn't count then this will become utter spam

[Yeltsu]

Oh btw, Spam on topic

I haven't seen the movie so I can't really tell. I guess it counts though Locke

[arno_v]

I've also watched the animation and I must say it was a nice movie. The storry was nice the animation looked a bit dull though. Maybe I should read the book.

[C Elegans]

It was 20 years ago I read the Animal Farm, but I did not like it particularly then to be honest. I am not fond of Orwell's writing style, and I never forgave him his rip-off of Zamyatin's We.

The good thing with the Animal Farm is that in a very accessible easy-to-read way, it illustates some basic problems of socialism and capitalism and also some basic problems with power and with powerful organisations in general. The reason I didn't like it was not because of the choosen topics, but because of the parodic and overly demonstrative style, and because I find Orwell in general stylistically dull and uninteresting.

EDIT: I have not seen the cartoon, I can imagine this novel is very apt for making a cartoon of.

[Magrus]

I read the book years ago, probably 7-10. My memory is horrible, so details are gone and dead to me. I remember enjoying the book. I kept getting in trouble, a book that size, I can easily finish within 4 hours and my teacher made us read it for like 3 weeks. I hated that, I'd read the chapter we had in 5 minutes and sleep through class.

I liked it at the time. It had a certain charm to it mixing political messages into a children's story that I found refreshing.

[fable]

I last read it about 40 years ago, and remember having a similar reaction to CE's. Orwell could have gone much further in detail than he did, and it still would have been fun. But I suspect, from what little I know of him, that his editors pulled the reins in.

[frogus23]

@Yeltsu, perhaps you should clarify wether you wanted spam on the topic of Orwell's novel or the topic of Magrus' precocious intelligence?

@CE, isn't Orwell forgiven by history for acknowledging 1984's debt to Zamyatin in a gentlemanly style? I haven't read him, but it sounds like Animal Farm owes very little to him other than being fed up with Bolshevism, which may have been quite a widespread sentiment among most people (including satirical authors) at the time.

My parents read me Animal Farm when I was young, and it gave me nightmares at the time, so when I read it as a teenager it was all the more powerful, and brilliant IMO.

I wonder though - is Old Major supposed to represent a real Russian figure or movement, and if so who? Did you bother trying to match up characters exactly with history or not?

[Yeltsu]

@ frog: I meant spam on topic regarding the novel, Magrus' intellect is discussed in many other threads here, so let's keep this thread Magrus spam-free

I think Old Mayor is either Lenin or Marx, When I wrote that I thought he was Marx in a paper, my teacher didn't agree with me, she meant he was Lenin. Still I would say he is a mixture of both

@fable&CE: I don't know what you mean by

Originally Posted by CE

I never forgave him his rip-off of Zamyatin's We

What book is this? I have only read 1984 and Animal Farm by Orwell so I don't know too much about him. Could you please elaborate and enlighten this youngster?

[Cuchulain82]

Originally Posted by Yeltsu

I think Old Mayor is either Lenin or Marx, When I wrote that I thought he was Marx in a paper, my teacher didn't agree with me, she meant he was Lenin. Still I would say he is a mixture of both

I haven't read the book and normally I wouldn't post, but I just though that it should be mentioned that Lenin was very different from Marx. Marx's ideas were in large part coopted by Lenin, and generally Marx's writings have much more layers than Lenin's. In Orwell's defense, there is probably no way he could have known this- much of Marx and Lenin's writing wasn't available in the West until recently.

[frogus23]

Yevgeny Zamyatin was a Russian Communist anti-Soviet auithor in the earlier part of the twentieth century, who is recognised now as the inventor of the socialist dystopian satire (as also seen in Orwell, Huxley, Ray Bradbury and any number of imitating sci-fi types, and movies like The Wall and Brazil).

He wrote 'We' which is his only very famous book in the twenties as a reaction to where he saw Leninism heading, and 1984 is meant to be a shameless copy.

He got expelled by Stalin of course and became a bit of an icon to emigre writers like Trotsky et al.

[Magrus]

Originally Posted by frogus23

@Yeltsu, perhaps you should clarify wether you wanted spam on the topic of Orwell's novel or the topic of Magrus' precocious intelligence?

My reading fast has nothing to do with intelligence.

I suppose I rushed what I said and didn't divulge too much, I assumed my comment would be considered on topic as is though. I enjoyed the book. People are mentioning that they read the book as children, and wouldn't find it up to there level now. Of course not, it was meant to involve politics into a childrens story, unless I'm mistaken. I found that wonderful. You take a cartoonish type story for kids, and thrust them into a make-believe take on real-life politics. I thought that was refreshing HAVING to read something amusing when I was younger that taught me about politics.

Tossing a history book at people to learn doesn't always work. Personally, sometimes, I learn more through humor and sarcasm than any way. I respond better to it. There should be more such history/children's stories done and read in school IMO. Your still reading, yet, it brings a different approach to learning an otherwise dry and dull subject in some peoples view.

Originally Posted by Fable

I last read it about 40 years ago, and remember having a similar reaction to CE's. Orwell could have gone much further in detail than he did, and it still would have been fun. But I suspect, from what little I know of him, that his editors pulled the reins in.

It was probably done because of the time it was released, and the sensativity of people and the topic. I personally, would have enjoyed more detail. However, it was one of my favorite books to have read which were required in school. It made me WANT to read more than the other books I was handed. Most bored or irritated me. This one had humor, and violence, and such, but it was all based on a real, historical situation. It wasn't until I was in my last few years of school that I was handed a book to read in class that drew my attention to such topics.

[VonDondu]

When I was in junior high school, I read a lot of science fiction (most of which I don't remember very well). I also read 1984 by George Orwell, which isn't really science fiction per se, but it was about "the future", so I thought it would be interesting. Then I started trying to read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (one of the most highly esteemed authors of fantasy), and I couldn't finish it. I also tried to read A Clockwork Orange and Brave New World, but by the time I was halfway through them, I was completely burned out on "dystopia" novels. Individual liberty is steamrolled by society (check), social planning is evil (check), authority figures are always corrupt (check), etc. Noncomformity was a really big issue when I was growing up, and no matter how much lip service was paid to individual liberty and freedom of expression, the world I grew up in was dominated by peer pressure and lots of social expectations from all sides, and I was tired of thinking about all of the ways the human spirit can be crushed. So by the time I was required to read Animal Farm for a high school class assignment, I breezed through it and didn't pay much attention. At my high school, essay composition requirements were extremely low by my standards, and I usually wrote my pathetic 500-word essays during lunchhour right before they were due. If we had read anything I was really interested in at the time (such as Shakespeare), I would have invested a lot more time and energy.

However, I must say that Animal Farm, as short as it was, still left more of a mark on me than some of the other stories I mentioned. The symobolism was a little too thick for my taste, but certain scenes were especially memorable, such as when the "subversive" pig was chased away by dogs, or when the "old work horse" tried to kick open the trailer door but no longer had enough strength to do it, and when the pigs walked in on two legs. "Four legs good, two legs better" is certainly a memorable concept, as is the namesake of this message thread.

By the way, I saw the made-for-TV movie Brave New World on the SciFi Channel last night. Has anyone else seen it? I thought it was pretty well done. I'm aware that the ending was different in the book, but I liked the theme of the TV version: society might suppress the human spirit in nearly every quarter, but there's always a chance that a few individuals can overcome it and make a difference. If you're going to start with the idea that attempts to engineer a "perfect" society are fundamentally flawed, then it doesn't make sense to take the pessimistic view that the people making those attempts are always going to "win". The system will fail at some point. That's the way I see it, anyway.

[frogus23]

Originally Posted by fable

I last read it about 40 years ago, and remember having a similar reaction to CE's. Orwell could have gone much further in detail than he did, and it still would have been fun. But I suspect, from what little I know of him, that his editors pulled the reins in.

I very much doubt that his editors would have objected to greater detail - I think it was Orwell's own judgment. As Magrus points out, the genius of the book is that it is dissolved in nursery story.

Originally Posted by Magrus

It was probably done because of the time it was released, and the sensativity of people and the topic.

Not everyone was sensitive on the subject of the Soviet Union by 1945, and many in Britain already felt that the socialist experiment had failed. Orwell's essays and newspaper articles from the time were not at all shy about inculpating the Soviet Union, it's citizens, Stalinists, British Communists and even Trotskyists.

But more importantly, if the editors had not ben so sensitive, what harder message do you think could have been expressed with the addition of more detail or more complex symbolism? I think that it was crystaline and forceful already - the simplicity of the allegory is what makes it what it is (a children's book), and what makes it powerful. Would there have been any purpose at all to an adult, complex version of the revolution played by animals in a farm?

@Von

But the story of ideological powers trying to create a "perfect" new world and failing happens every day on the news. What would happen if they win is thus the interesting flip-side for writers.

You're only considering the pre-Stalinist SciFi dystopian political novel (gargh I can't think how to re-phrase that ). However, it seems that the Soviet Union sadly ended the socialist dystopia genre by becoming reality, hence semi-fiction like Animal Farm. But there are plenty of contemporary dystopian sci-fi novels that deal equally with real political trends, but with their own fears. I quite liked Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood.

[Magrus]

@Frogus23, Oh I concur about the whole children's story thing. I think it was great like that. It could have been altered for a more adult viewpoint, but it wasn't. Reading it again now, just would have a nostalgic effect on me, I'd be far better of searching for a more research/historical non-fiction book for information on the subject. As a child however, that was a perfect way to express the subject in an interesting manner.

It's been so long since I've read it, I honestly cannot recall many details so I can't recall instances where they could have gone further and still kept it a children's story.