Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

I read this back in high school in 1970, still appropriate today! Orwells view coming out of WW II into the cold war era. Are us humans still acting like animals? --Bybookmasteron January 21, 2009

This is a fable or children story conceived by George Orwell when he saw a small boy driving a large horse along a road, Orwell felt that if the horse could only comprehend that it was more powerful than the boy it would do its own thing instead of his bidding. On Animal Farm is the story of how different farm yard animals unite following an enlightenment about their fate and oppression. The animals agree to an egalitarian and "share and share alike" constitution by which to govern their new arrangements while defending themselves from the expelled farmer's attempts to re-establish the old ways of doing business. The constitution is inscribed for all to see with "All Animals Are Equal" leading the list, slowly as the farm yards pigs rise to assume the position of leaders they abandon each of these value statements, radically revising them to justify a return to the old ways of doing business which characterised the original farmer who they threw out. Like his other books Orwell was disappointed in his own lifetime with how the books where received and interpreted, of Animal Farm which he described as a "simple fable" Orwell stated if its simple message about betrayal where not understood then the book had been a failure. --"Lark" - Amazon TOP 1000 REVIEWER on 21 April 2009

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 21 January 1950),[1] who used the pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism.[2][3] Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction, and polemical journalism. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working class life in the north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, are widely acclaimed, as are his essays on politics, literature, language, and culture. In 2008, The Times ranked him second on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[4] Orwell's work continues to influence popular and political culture, and the term Orwellian descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices has entered the language together with several of his neologisms, including cold war, Big Brother, Thought Police, Room 101, doublethink, and thoughtcrime.[5]