Animal Farm by George Orwell

Finished Animal farm by George Orwell last week (for once the state of the book isn’t my fault, I bought it this way!).

It seems like every book I’m reading atm has already been ‘proven’ to be great but really I’m just reading those I’m drawn to. A wise man once said I don’t want to read every book, just the 100 greatest books. Animal farm is one of those.

In Animal farm Orwell uses the story of animals (duh!) on a farm who take over and take control of the farm to portray the state of communist Russia at the time.

I read this book thinking I understood the premise. it’s a book that shows how power can be the root of all evil and that any form of control disguised as ‘for the greater good’ is never really good. Some want control, some want to be controlled. With controlling systems it’s a choice of the lesser of two evils, as was the case in animal farm, the farmer or the pigs, either way you’re fucked. .

My thoughts on the book may be correct depending on your interpretation, however what is certain is that Animal Farm was Orwell’s way of unmasking the positive propaganda from the UK towards Russia at the time.

Animal farm and Orwell’s other book 1984 are similar in terms of their political nature and how both stories seem to involve some twisting of information by the ruling party in order to control the masses as well as the use of scapegoating. I prefer Animal farm out of the two, it captures you from the get go, this may be because it’s a shorter book so it feels like easy reading. Also having an image of a farm run by animals in my head was weirdly amusing.

The message I leave you below might seem cryptic but it resonates with my thoughts after finishing this book.

The pursuit of power is inherently wrong, knowledge is power.