Welcome to the second edition of “Worth the Read,” where I read books and tell you if they are actually worth the read. This week I read the classic “Animal Farm,” published in 1945, by George Orwell to find out if it’s really all that the reviewers say it is.

The plot: Manor Farm is run by Farmer Jones, who abuses all of the farm’s animals. One day, an old pig named Major tells the other animals about his dream of running an animal farm. This, combined with Jones’ abuse, motivates the other animals to drive Jones out and establish the pigs as the new leaders. However, the pigs gradually become corrupted and the values of their revolution become lost over time.

Readability

This book was written in the 1940s and involves some complicated language. Nevertheless, it didn’t actively hinder me from understanding the text. In fact, I think that it’s pretty well organized and I had no problems understanding what was going on.

The only part that I had trouble with was keeping track of the animals’ names and species. There are a lot of species mentioned in the book, given that it’s an animal-centric story. And I found myself actively forgetting who some characters were due to how small of an impact they had on the story. These characters were briefly introduced at the beginning by their name and species and then almost never referenced by their species again. Overall, 9.5/10.

The Content

I can’t start the content section without mentioning that this book is an allegory of the Russian Revolution. While people who are intimately familiar with the history of the event may draw more meaning and might make more connections between this book and the Russian Revolution, I don’t know all that much about the event. Thus, I will be approaching the content acknowledging that it is an allegory without drawing any parallels to the Revolution specifically. Instead, I’ll be observing the larger themes that Orwell portrays through the characters. The characters that I want to discuss here are Napoleon, Squealer and Snowball, who are the three pigs that do most of the leading and are the main characters in the sense that everything that happens in the book revolves around them.

In the beginning after they kick Jones out, Napoleon and Snowball work with Squealer to control all of the farm’s other animals. Napoleon and Snowball butt heads immediately, due to Snowball’s desire to industrially advance their community. I really liked Snowball; he seemed to truly care for the animals and tried his best to help them. However, Napoleon uses the revolution as the chance to take power for himself, and uses the fear of Jones returning to continue his physical and emotional abuse. Squealer is the propagandist who roams the farm and gaslights the animals to further increase Napoleon’s power. While I didn’t like Napoleon or Squealer, Squealer was so much worse. At least it’s interesting to see how Napoleon plays a situation to his advantage, but all Squealer can do is eat the scraps of power given to him from Napoleon. However, I know that that was a conscious decision on Orwell’s part to make them as hypocritical as possible, so I can’t fault them too much for a job well done.

I think that Napoleon and Snowball contrasted really well as characters. To me, this feels like Orwell is delivering a message about people who come into positions of power. They’re either A) a Snowball, or someone who believes in their cause wholeheartedly and will do anything to advance it, or B) a Napoleon, someone who sees a cause and injects themself into it to propel themselves forward and gain more power. A Napoleon is usually backed by a Squealer, who helps make sure that the people don’t revolt against the leader by spreading propaganda.

The message that Orwell was trying to send was received loud and clear, and I thought it was interesting to see characterization be used as a way to drive home a message. My only criticism is that the characters are very simple and flat. They show no nuance beyond the basic ideas that they are supposed to represent. It makes sense, given that this is a satire, but it would’ve been nice to see a bit more development and personality in some of the other characters rather than their simple traits. I give the characters a 9/10.

Writing

I really enjoyed the way this book was written. It felt like a slow build-up to an explosive and fast-paced climax. Orwell takes us every step of the way, showing us how revolutions can fall apart, going right back to base one. The writing style is simple, yet the ideas expressed are so much more complex. However, I found some of the details unnecessary, which broke my immersion.

I also felt like the plot was pretty predictable. Once I saw Napoleon beginning to take control, I almost instantly knew how this book was going to end, and the book didn’t really try to set any element of mystery up as to how it would conclude. The pacing was fine, though I wished that there was more time spent with the animals right before they kicked Jones out, such as scenes about their secret meetings. Overall, I did enjoy how Orwell took me though the journey of events to get to the end. A 9/10 for the writing.

The Results

Readability: 9.5/10
Characters: 8/10
Writing: 9/10

Overall, that leads to an average score of 8.8/10. It’s definitely worth a read, but not so much a re-read. It says what it needs to, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table afterwards.

Usually in a book there’s a lot of things that you can pick apart afterwards, but this one’s message is so blatant that it doesn’t leave much else to be analyzed after the fact. The book is good for anyone who enjoys reading satires, especially political satires, and the message is clear, concise and in your face enough that anyone can learn or draw meaning from the book’s message about the government and the people who we elect to lead us.