What I said to myself after reading this book was "What the hell man!! I didn't know that you could write an entire book ripping off a real life event, by just changing some of the the main characters to animals, make money off it and gain critic praise for it."
"Simply phenomenal!" is what the book is. Simple in its writing style and words used, the book is an easy read for anybody who is familiar with the English language. If you have a decent knowledge of politics and history you could easily spot which animal is representing which real life character. Being somebody who has done a MOOC course on the "History of the revolution in 'Animal Farm' "(if you don't know which place the animal farm is in real life then Google it), I had to go through the same feelings of shock, anger and disappointment I felt originally when did the course. So it was like a double burn.
If you are going to read the book then I should warn you that it is quite depressing; because like other novels of Orwell it has a dystopian outlook to things. It is going to make you feel sad for some characters of the book.
It is going to make you question the very nature of some things around us.
Politically many have argued that this book is challenging a certain philosophy and critiques it on all its flaws. Many regimes which follow this philosophy have banned it too. So that should say something. But I would say that, despite the specificity of the origin of the story, the book is not critiquing a single philosophy alone. It is truly a warning against a totalitarian regime in any shape or form.
The book also points fingers at "ideology" by showing that however pure the intentions of people in beginning are, there would always be people among the ideologues themselves, who are just biding their time waiting for the right moment to strike at the system and perverse it for their own selfish gains. It almost seems inevitable in the book and points at the unavoidable corruption that exist in 'humanity' . It is a part of human experience that we have to fight with all throughout our life.
It's very interesting to see that Orwell had this great understanding of how things went wrong in "The animal farm" even amidst all the propaganda and his socialist leanings. We don't see such honest personalities and authors very often now.
So, have a good read :)
P.S: I didn't mention the real events and people in the animal farm was to let you have a crack at finding what event is this is in real life. But I guess it is really pointless.
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