Animal Farm - Softcover

Orwell, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141187387 ISBN 13: 9780141187389

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2003

Synopsis

'It is the history of a revolution that went wrong-and of the excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for the perversion of the original doctrine,' wrote George Orwell for the first edition of ANIMAL FARM in 1945. His simple and tragicfable, telling of what happens when the animals drive out Mr Jones and attempt to run the farm themselves, has since become a world-famous classic of English prose.
'Surely the most important fictional satire to be written in twentieth-century Britain' Malcolm Bradbury

About this title

Review:

Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has been recognized as a classic of modern political satire. Fuelled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing--both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson

Review:

`Brilliant'. --Daily Mail

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0141187387
• ISBN 13: 9780141187389
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128