Four legs good, two legs bad (Animal Farm - George Orwell)

Member Name: steveuk

Product:	Animal Farm - George Orwell
Date:	16/12/02 (737 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Classic, Powerful, Unputdownable

Disadvantages: Sad ending

The first time I read this book was when I was at school. I could remember that I enjoyed this book but not much else ... not even the ending. So when one of my friends mentioned that he had listened to the audio book of it recently, I thought it was a good time to read it again.

Details:
Title: Animal Farm (Originally called "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" but the subtitle was dropped or changed in the numerous translations).
Author: George Orwell (Pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair) Born in India in 1903 and died in London in January 1950. He wrote several books, but his best known works are "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
Pages: 95
Publisher: Penguin
Price: £5.99

The story takes place at Manor Farm where the animals decide to rebel against Mr Jones, the owner of the farm, and humans in general. After the rebellion, everything goes well for a while, the animals are happy, they work a lot and nobody is hungry anymore. The pigs (being the most intelligent animals) take charge of the farm, change the name to "Animal Farm" and come up with Seven Commandments for all animals to follow. Essentially, these commandments describe everything that humans do (i.e. wear clothes, drink alcohol, sleep in beds, walk on two legs and kill animals) as bad and enything that "goes upon four legs, or has wings" as a friend and equal. These commandments are summarised by the sheep as: "Four legs good, two legs bad".

Soon though, the pigs start abusing their privilege and power as leaders of the farm. They do less work, start eating more and move into Mr Jones' house. They start editing the Seven Commandments to cover up their greed, leaving the rest of the animals hungry and tired (just like when Mr Jones ran the farm).

Orwell once said that Animal Farm was "primarily a satire on the Russian Revolution" but was also intended to have a wider application. I


n my opinion this is true, there were points in the book that reminded me a lot of .... dare I say it.... one of my previous employers, you know, the pigs doing something completely selfish and pretending they did it for everyone else's good (I could name a few managers with similar skills :o) )

When I started reading the book I thought it brilliant and was hoping that by the end of it would have become my number one favourite book. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, for the simple reason that I didn't like the ending very much. I was hoping for a "and they lived happily ever after" ending but that didn't happen. It made me feel sad and sorry about the "common" animals. However, the book is one of my favourites. It delivers a powerful message in a very simple was and ending certainly "adds" to the effectiveness of the message.

Copyright steveuk 2002

Summary: