Animal Farm - Not a Book Review

I don’t know if this is truly a review for this book, a major reason may be that most of the people pass out of high school having read a book and written a book report too sometimes; thanks to our education system, somehow I skipped that complete episode. At this age, if I write a book review, it wouldn’t be fair; on the internet there is no shortage of different reviews. One more additional review is not going to make any difference; the difference lies in how and what lessons can be taken away from this classic.

Animal Farm is a satirical allegory – the different characters portray different characters of Russian revolution; given the era in which this book was written, it is obvious. I would talk about two characters who I believe are the two kinds of people we see in our society. First would be the Boxer, one of the farm’s cart horses, the strongest and hardest worker on the farm. Initially, his motto was “I will work harder”, and later when the going got tough he shrugged every bit of doubt out of his mind and made his motto to be “Napoleon is always right”.

On the other hand, Benjamin was the ill-tempered, cynical donkey of the farm. His kind was completely detached from whatever happens in the world, because they have accepted that things would always be the same and would always be bad. He worked as usual, never did anything extra, and never expected anything extra.

Of course Benjamin was right, things did go from bad to worse. Benjamin is the voice of the author, as well as the contemporary strategists who saw the consequences of the Russian Revolution. But it is Boxer that influenced me the most, as it is Boxer who at least tried to believe that his actions and contributions would make a difference to society. I do not say it is the best way to approach a problem or issue, but it is definitely better than doing nothing and simply accepting destiny.

As every author adds irony and a little spice in the story, Orwell made Benjamin and Boxer close friends; though completely opposite, they still had deep mutual respect for each other. I do not know what could have been the reason behind it but as I see it, the author probably wanted to say something like this -

“There are seven billion people in this world, and seven billion unique ways to live life, no one knows which one is the best, so let’s live ours the way we want to, let others live the way they want to.”

Coming back to the book, lots of people say it is about socialism, and how it is bad for the society. But considering the fact that Orwell was himself a socialist, I do not think it is entirely about the evils of socialism. I do not deny that this book cannot be the product of a broken-hearted man who expected a lot from socialism, but still it is about more than just socialism.

To me, the book talks about the two aspects of life: first, about the little seed of corruption which is present in every single one of us, and the other aspect about how history can be changed. The revolution was started with a very good intention; it was the little seed of corruption present in the hearts of everyone, especially the pigs who ended up taking control of the whole farm with Napoleon as the ruler. The second aspect can be justified by the fact that the seven noble commandments were changed from time to time, and ultimately nobody remembered what the actual seven commandments were. It shows how easy it is to change, manipulate and sometimes even wipe out history. A similar message was the main theme behind another Orwell’s classic 1984.

The book also tries to shred to pieces one of the most basic assumptions for any process or action –‘humans are rational animals’. We are not. If someone asks me to explain in one word why the revolution didn’t work, I would say ‘irrationality’. The revolution was too idealistic from the start, there was no room to compensate for our inherent irrationality. The whole story revolves around nothing but the betrayal of ideals.

The irony of life is that despite such a story, full of answers and lessons, similar events continue to occur. In the most recent past, the credit crisis that started in 2008 can be seen as a similar happening. It took place because of our irrational thoughts and greed, which is nothing but a form of corruption.

Companies like Enron, who started so well, and looked so promising does not exist at present, and the reason behind it is obvious - the initial seed of corruption had flourished into a full-blown tree inside those who led the company. From being a company promising solutions in the energy sector, they dreamt of ruling and controlling the energy distribution network. Can we call it a betrayal of ideals, in my opinion yes, in the truest sense.

In a broader sense, I would like to say that this book teaches us only one thing - when the journey is long, and the hurdles are too many to count, there is one thing we should not forget is the reason we took the first step of this journey. Irrationality and corruption are bound to creep in, and there should be mechanisms to avoid or neutralize them. Even then, I do not think a journey can end with the same objectives with which it was started, but the least we can do is try.