Book Review: Animal Farm by George Orwell

M.A. Sadik is the Founder Director of Smart Leaders IAS Academy. He has a bachelor’s degree in Physics and masters in History.

Sadik teaches history and geography. He has authored several books on these two subjects. He is a reader and traveler.

He has been mentoring and teaching students for UPSC exams preparations since 2008. He runs a YouTube channel called Smart Leaders IAS. His website www.smartleadersias.com is a treasure trove for students aspiring to write the UPSC exams.

About the book

Title: Animal Farm
Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Penguin Random House India
Publication: 2011 (First edition published 1945.)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0143416319
Pages: 104 (Paperback)
Price: Rs. 113
Website: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/327220/animal-farm-by-george-or...

Description
Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England in 1945. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.

Author

Eric Arthur Blair aka George Orwell was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934).

Orwell was an English essayist, critic, novelist and journalist. His area of focus was awareness of social injustice and democratic socialism, while he was in opposition of dictatorship. His works includes literary criticism, fiction, poetry and polemical journalism. Best known for the dystopian novel: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Animal Farm (1945), George Orwell was ranked the second greatest British writers since 1945 by The Times.

Book Review

Some animals are greater than others.

Animal farm is a book written by George Orwell in 1945. It is a short, yet insightful book. The book is just around 100 pages. It is written in the form of a fable.

The story deals with the events happening at Manor Farm, where animals are mistreated by men. So the animals decide to stage a revolution against the men, which proves successful. After the revolution all the animals draft a constitution based on equality. They decide themselves to be ruled by the pigs (Napoleon) and the story progresses. In the end, the ruling class (the pigs) proves to be as crooked and cruel to all the animals as men.

The book is written on the back drop of the Communist Revolution in Russia. It traces resemblance to Stalin (character Napoleon), Trotsky (Snowball) and others.

The book highlights how history can easily be misrepresented and often changed for the convenience of the ruled. It also highlights that, as long as weakness and ignorance exists, exploitation would continue till the end.

The story also clearly highlights some characters in our society: the hard working, the cunning, the exploitative, the dumb, the ignorant, etc.

What impressed me the most in the book was the well characterization of even the minor animals like, horse, donkey, sheep, cat, goat, puppies, etc.

I recommend the book as a must-read for all UPSC aspirants and students.

Sadik Kidas addressing UPSC aspirants.