Audio book length: 3 hrs 3 mins
Rating: 4 stars
Nowhere Books Bingo 25: Banned Book
Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Cover featuring an animal
On Manor Farm, somewhere in England, an old boar gathers all the animals in the barn and makes a powerful speech about how animals suffer at the hands of humans and should rise up and take power for themselves. Shortly after his death, the animals of Manor Farm do just that - they violently fight back when Farmer Jones and his farmhands try to control them and chase the farmer, his wife and all the other humans on the farm away. All animals will be equal, everyone will contribute to the farm to the best of their abilities, walking on two legs and using collars or human attire is forbidden, and no one will use the farmhouse anymore. The pigs manage to teach themselves to read and write and seven lofty commandments for the governing of Animal Farm are painted on the barn walls. Things seem very idyllic for the animals at first, but it doesn't take long before some of the animals take a more prominent role in the rule and governing of the farm, and as a result, decide that they deserve more than their allotted share of the resources.
This is where I have to confess to never having read Animal Farm until this year when we're teaching it to the tenth-graders. Unlike Et dukkehjem, which I have read and taught a bunch of times, we never used this book on the curriculum before, and because I like to read for escapism and to avoid traumatic and depressing reading experiences, I've tried to stay away from George Orwell's novels. While it's not a long book, only a novella really, an allegory stuffed full of political satire isn't the easiest thing for rather sheltered Norwegian tenth-graders to process, and quite a few of our pupils are having a tough time with it. Of course, when we planned the curriculum for this year in August, none of us English teachers had any idea how much more relevant it was going to become (thanks for that, America), although the machinations of the pigs seem almost quaint compared to the geo-political nightmare taking place in the United States right now.
I had to read up on Soviet/Russian history in the 20th Century after reading this, so as better to understand all the things the book alludes to, to then teach it to the kids. The ones who are generally interested in history and current events, seem to be getting a lot more out of the book than the others. Some of them are questioning why they have to read a book about a bunch of animals - hence the need to try to tell them the real-world events that inspired the book. It's going to be interesting to see what they think once we finish the book, it's not exactly a fun or heartwarming tale - rather than a depressing dystopian fable.
I'm glad I read it, but it's deeply tragic that not only have we not learned anything from history and books such as this, but power-hungry despots with seemingly no grasp of actual decency are being allowed to do much worse as we speak. Poor Orwell is probably rolling in his grave.
Judging a book by its cover: Red and black, very Communist colour scheme and the entire layout of the cover looks like a propaganda poster of some kind. The fateful windmill is front and centre, along with a slightly sinister-looking pig. There are countless editions of this book, and just as many different cover designs. I kind of like this one.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read
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