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Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution
gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest
Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three
pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled 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.
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