Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Recorded Books
Rating: WORTHY!
(Read by Patrick Tull on Recorded Books. Now available free online.)
I think it's an encouragement to the rest of us writer wannabes that even Orwell had trouble finding a publisher for this downer of a novel. It presages his 1984 which was published four years later and was even more depressing.
This story takes place on Manor Farm, soon to be renamed Animal Farm, and then re-renamed Manor Farm at the end. Old Major, chief pig, pontificates about how wonderful it would be if the human parasites were gone and the animals were allowed free reign - the old 'workers control the means of production' thing. After Major dies, Snowball and Napoleon take over the farm and very shortly afterwards, sooner than the animals expected, circumstances arise which result in Mr Jones, the farmer, being expelled from his own farm by these animals.
The animals celebrate the joyous day of animal liberation. They distill Major's speech into seven commandments, which are later slyly adjusted so that the pigs' behavior is never outside 'the law'. What the other animals never quite grasp is that these pigs truly are pigs in the derogatory sense. The animals are not free, not even close, because the pigs very effectively take the place of the humans, but it's done slowly and stealthily so that no one really notices it, and when some of them do notice, they think that it's their memory which is at fault, not the activities of the pigs.
There are some interesting politics going on here and some amusing and disturbing redefinitions of what things are, all ultimately benefiting the pigs, even though initially this is all supposed to benefit the animals. One of these, for example, was the act of defining wings as organs of propulsion rather than organs of manipulation as are hands, thereby classifying birds as having four legs, so that the sheep (very cleverly designated) can chant "four legs good, two legs bad" which, when the pigs themselves start walking around on two legs the better to carry lashes, morphs into "four legs good, two legs better".
The aims begin admirably, with labor being divided evenly, and animals being taught to read and write, but soon dissension occurs, and the moderate Snowball is expelled from the farm never to return. We never learn what happens to him (maybe there's a sequel there for someone to write!), but now that he's gone, Napoleon has a designated villain, and everything which goes bad or which fails is blamed on Snowball's sabotage. Everything else is credited to Napoleon's brilliance and foresight - even those things which were originally Snowball's ideas, and which Napoleon initially agitated against. Napoleon slowly becomes a cult figure as well as a fledgling dictator, protected by trained guard dogs.
Napoleon's stranglehold over the farm and the animals grows, as he becomes the sole voice of authority, and everyone keeps falling into line. It's tragic, and it's depressing to read this, because it's only too true in the real world. It's as true of communism as it is of religion. We've seen it practiced in the old Soviet Union (now defunct, but with ambitions of resurrection) as well as in China and North Korea. We've seen it in religious cults as superficially diverse as Catholicism and the Aztec religion of the old Americas.
Every one of the animals' wins from their revolution is eroded away or stolen from them until, in the end, they're far worse-off than ever they were under Mr Jones, as awful as he was. Napoleon resurrects one of Snowball's ideas - to build a windmill to generate electricity - a plan which Napoleon railed against, but which is now presented as Napoleon's own idea, which Snowball sought to veto. The windmill becomes work for work's sake, rather like the Nazi work camps, where arbeit machs frei, and the task is never done because the windmill keeps running into problems, sometimes mysteriously, sometimes due to enemy action - from real enemies in the form of human attempts to reclaim the farm.
Just like in 1984, every vice is turned into a virtue while still remaining a vice, and every lie is turned into a truth while still being a lie. There is no happy ending, but the story is a great ode to recycling: especially how evil, if left unchecked, recycles around and bites you in the rear right after you thought you'd chased it away.
I recommend this novel.
