📚Insider book club: Revisiting a classic literary allegory

ORLANDO, Fla. – “Animal Farm” is a short read that’s well worth your time if you’re looking for a fun story that forces you to reflect on society then and now and doesn’t guarantee you a happy ending.

If you were forced to read this in high school, this is my personal plea for you to read it again without the anxiety of having to discuss it in class.

“Animal Farm” is a 128-page novella about animals on a farm that rise up against a brutal and inept farmer. An elderly pig gives the animals a vision of how the farm could be run if the animals were in charge. The idea is good until the pigs, who can read, begin to change the rules and convince the animals who can’t read that the new, more oppressive rules have always been there. Eventually, the animals find themselves in the same exact situation, if not worse, as the one they were trying to escape.

What sticks out to me about this novella is the ease with which George Orwell tells a story that’s meant to represent the transition from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. However, this book is not a boring history lesson but a colorful story that is meant to be easily understood and entertaining. It’s all about life on a farm and could easily be mistaken for a children’s story.

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The characters are full of personality and Orwell makes it easy to develop emotional attachments. There are the oppressive and manipulative pigs, the mean alcoholic farmers and the gentle and caring horses. Readers are quick to pick sides, root for certain groups, rail against others and go through a whole emotional rollercoaster in just 128 pages.

If you are a history buff, it’s interesting to know which characters were meant to represent which people from the Stalinist era. If you already know about that era, a good chunk of the book is likely already spoiled for you, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining of a read. For those who are more into the historical side of things, I’d suggest doing a quick Wiki review of the book to see what parallels Orwell makes between the fictional animals and the real-life people.

I would not classify Animal Farm as a feel-good story, so if that’s what you’re looking for, veer away from this novella. No happy ending here, unless you’re a super optimist and can detect some sort of hope that I just can’t find in the last few pages. I will say, however, that if you’ve read 1984 and felt like that was just too dark for you, Animal Farm is much lighter.

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