Animal Farm | Book Review

Where should I begin...

When I started reading Animal Farm, I had this pre-knowledge that this book is an allegory about Russian revolution. With that in mind, I kept doing 'oh, this must be Stalin', 'who is this character Squealer supposed to be?', 'is he the media?', 'who is Old Major?'.

Animal Farm is basically about a farm taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. There is this Old Major, a boar who spread the idea of a revolution, and there are these two young boars, Snowball and Napoleon, who started it. It's a fable, an allegory, and a satire all in one story.

I'm not familiar with Russian history–almost at all. So I can only guess whilst enjoying the thought-provoking story about the farm. However, as the story unfolds, it gets more and more disturbing that by the end of it, I closed the book and thought; damn, this could be about MY country. I went from thinking about Czar Nicholas/Stalin/Lenin/Marx to wondering about Dutch and Japanese colonialism, Soeharto and all other leaders Indonesia ever had or has. It's quite unsettling wondering about who am I in this story, or where we are. Knowing that this book was published almost a century ago and somewhat still true to this day, is just... I don't know, horrifying?

I got the same feeling after reading 1984, that happened to be written by the same author. George Orwell was a big pessimist guy wasn't he? I've only read two of his works, both are masterpieces, but none give any hope about what the future holds. And that's the main reason I left out half a star from a total of five stars I gave. I need hope.

While I don't have favourite character in this book (which rarely happens), Boxer's story resonates deeply with me. He represents the labor class who works the hardest, has a strong faith in his leader, and yet gets treated unfairly. I also find Moses quite intriguing. I'm pretty sure he represents some sort of religion organisations whose job is to share stories about 'Sugarcandy Mountain' and keep the other animals hopeful and productive. The pigs are the worse kind, yet it got me wondering; am I one of them? Or am I Muriel, who's knowledgable enough but did nothing. Or Benjamin, who just couldn't care less about everything except when Boxer is taken away.

Seriously tho,

Who are we in this story? Are we helping the unfortunate or the elite? What can we do to break the wheel? (definitely not Daenerys' style #GOTreference)

Just because we speak foreign languages, went to a prestige school, read books, do we *subconsciously* believe we are better than anyone else–or worse, proud to think so? If we don't put our knowledge to use and be helpful to others, what good would it gives? The least we can do is to enlighten them, not standing further away thriving to join the elite. I'm not preaching here. Not to you. I'm writing all these to myself because I felt like being mentally slapped by the story. Those are only some of the endless questions I have in mind that if it doesn't stop spiralling, I might as well be as pessimistic as George Orwell.

How come a story about a farm makes me question my whole existence?
Sigh.

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random fact: Animal Farm was first published on the same day as the independence day of Indonesia, August 17th 1945.

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Animal Farm by George Orwell
Goodreads: 3,92
Book-bosomed: 4,5 stars out of 5