Animal Farm by George Orwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A timeless classic. It's always enjoyable to find out how the situation slowly moves in a circle to return to the same point where it started; how the animals don't feel but a slight change at a time that can only be noticed when we take a step back and look at the big picture, and how the great idols gradually devolved from "All animals are equal" to "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others".
It's one of the books that probably everyone should read but probably not everyone would appreciate it the same; I read it once many years ago but appreciated it infintely more after the recent Egyptian uprising and the colossal media machine that efficiently played the role of "Squealer" in our novel afterwards, brainwashing normal poeple and exploiting their fear, gullibility and volatile memory that can be easily manipulated by all the devil advocates around. I've seen the story events almost take place before my eyes more than once since January 2011.
Orwell was thought by some to be, simply, opposing socialism. In fact, it was the exact opposite, he believed in it so deeply that he wanted to protect it from the form of communism that was hailed by many at that time (after WWII). I've read someone putting it this way, for Orwell, "Capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure, but communism will kill the patient". He believed in democtratic socialism and classless society, abd these socialist ideals were betrayed by the Soviet Stalinism.
Like 1984, it can be applied to any totalitarian regime not specific to the Soviet one. Yes, it almost directly refers to Marx, Stalin and Trotsky, but manipulating history and betraying the noble causes are around us all the time. It's depressing though seeing how wickedness ended in triumph, seeing how things went with the character "Boxer", but it's still worth reading by everyone as a warning cry for nations to beware of the wolves, to stick with "Snowball", to know their enemies, and to keep their memories alive.
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