Animall Farm

Animal Farm opens with a clandestine meeting of the animals of Manor Farm after the owner, Mr. Jones, goes to bed drunk. Old Major, a boar, had a dream that he wanted to relate to all of the animals. His dream was of a farm governed by the animals, without Mr. Jones and other humans stealing all of their work, where all the animals were free and equal and worked to support themselves instead oftheir masters. Old Major dies before his vision is seen, but two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, take up the cause, flesh out his vision, and convince the animals that it's possible. The next time Jones lashes out with cruelty, the animals rebel, drive him and his wife off the farm, and take it over for themselves.
At first, the rebellion is an amazing success. The farm animals are giddy with joy andquickly change how everything is done on the farm. Seven basic principles are drawn up and painted on the side of the shed, the animals do their tasks with far more efficiency than possible before and work more collectively, the harvest is the best they've ever seen, and everyone has more food and more leisure. The only sign of the trouble to come is that the pigs don't seem to do much of thephysical work, instead saying that they're the best ones to do the organizing and directing. But slowly, the pigs take more and more control, the principles begin to change conveniently, times get worse, and Napoleon slowly seizes control.
It's always a bit odd to review a book that nearly everyone has already read in high school (and probably has written a book report on). It's particularly odd toadmit that this is one's first reading, as my idiosyncratic literature education missed Animal Farm and I'd never gotten around to reading it afterwards. But this is a fascinating book to read as an adult, particularly against the backdrop of reading Orwell's collected non-fiction writings including his own commentary on the purpose of the book and his feelings while writing it.
To warn, Iconsider the basic plot arc and tone of Animal Farm to be so much a part of our culture as to be beyond spoilers and therefore comment in more depth on later parts of the book than I normally would. If you haven't yet read the book and want to avoid all spoilers, you should stop reading here.
Animal Farm is, of course, a satirical allegory, very specifically of the Russian Revolution and of Stalin(Napoleon in the book), but more generally of revolution, the idealism of utopias, and the way in which people take control of societies founded on principles of equality. Several of the characters and settings have obvious specific mappings: Mr. Jones is Tsar Nicholas II, the farm itself is Russia, the neighboring farms are neighboring countries (particularly Pinchfield, representing Germany, andFoxwood, representing the Allies), old Major is Marx (with perhaps a bit of Lenin), Napoleon as mentioned is Stalin, Snowball is Trotsky, and Squealer is Pravda and the Russian government propaganda in general. But many of the other characters represent broader classes of people or even ideas, and the story reads wonderfully as both a specific satire and a general commentary on revolution andgovernment.
On the first reading, of specific satire, it's well-done and more detailed than one might realize without reading background material and perhaps some keys to the mappings (the Wikipedia article is mediocre but somewhat helpful). The negotiations and treaties and betrayals of the lead-in to World War II are all here, as are Stalin's purges, the famines, the creeping re-establishment ofcapitalism in the farm's external dealings, and a brilliant closing scene that captures the Tehran Conference and even the post-war confrontation between Stalin and the United States. The conflict between Napoleon and Snowball and Napoleon's subsequent use of Snowball throughout the rest of the book is a viciously sharp attack on the Stalinist vilification of Trotsky and tactic of blaming Trotskyites...