Animal Farm Sunday Afternoon: A Book Report Long Overdue

I am not sure if it was because I jumped states between my eleventh and twelfth grade years in High School or if I had teachers obsessed with pimping their own specialty list of literature, but there were a handful of books I missed as a kid. Recently a friend accused me in classic “Good Will Hunting” movie style, “Steve, you have all the wrong books.” So I have been setting aside some time to read a few older books that I apparently shouldn’t have missed here at 35 years of age. Book one in my series is “Animal Farm” by George Orwell.

I woke up this morning at about 7:20 and knew I had a day of reading ahead of me. Before I could dive into Animal Farm I felt like I had to finish up some reading I had already started. There are times when my bed stand gets quite full admittedly, as I am cruising threw a number of books concurrently in hopes that at least one of them grabs my attention in which case I would then read to completion. Alas, I am a bit compulsive and typically finish all of them, but not all at the same time. So having recently lain to rest “Slam” by Nick Hornby, I had about a dozen pages left in “The Associate” by John Grisham before jumping out of bed and devouring “Animal Farm.”

“The Associate” retired next to all of the other Grisham novels I have collected over the years and after a quick shower (amongst other preparations) I checked the weather, a cool 70 degrees with a breeze all over DC today, I headed for my favorite reading seat in the city, the metro.

During the ride into the city I devoured the first 50 pages of the story. Animal farm is a quick read at around 150 pages and after the 15 minute ride beneath the street I decided it was time to emerge from the trains and find a nice spot in a coffee shop to fuel the mind a bit with a nice caramel latte.

The read slowed a bit as the next 90 pages took about 2 hours alternating pages with sips from my indulgent drink and stolen moments of people watching. It is fun to watch people flow in and out of their morning like little trains on many different tracks going to all different destinations, all of them coffee drinkers: couples, runners, young families, teen girls, slutty women wearing yesterday’s dresses, flamboyant gay men looking around hoping to watch people watch them, people going to and coming from traditional Sunday morning church services. You could imagine that I was distracted, and while normally I would agree as it is admittedly not hard for me to become, the truth about those 90 pages is that they are thick with storytelling.

The original story “Animal Farm” used to carry the sub-title “A fairy story” and I can agree. As the story unfolded for me, I found the tale quite enchanting. The most enchanting part had everything to do with the fact that it was a well crafted warning of the historical failings and weaknesses of communism, but equally as importantly you quickly find your mind drawing lines between the experiences of the animals on the farm and one’s personal experience of current event today. It is amazing how history repeats itself.

After the coffee was gone and I had fully conformed the seat to my hind quarters, I decided to take a walk down E Street where I was enjoying my morning. By this time, the morning was soon going to turn into a very early afternoon. And as my favorite movie theater often showing independent films from around the world was just down the block, I figured it was a fine enough moment for a little reading break.

As I walked I pulled up the movie theater on my iphone to check out the schedule and see the show list. One caught my attention and it started in about 40 minutes. Well, it is a lazy day, and, well, why not? I thought.

Sitting in my theater seat alone in a before-noon independent film showing I was enveloped by super dim lighting accompanied only by my thoughts about the book. It would seem that no one else was interested in this movie. I hoped that was less about the fact that I just wasted my money on a perfectly bad movie and more about the fact that it was still early in the day. The room was dark and I was pondering if I could get someone to turn up the lights so I could read while I waited for the movie to start, when it hit me that my iphone could likely provide enough light to make reading possible.

I was able to see enough to read a chapter and then one more person sat down just in time for the movie to get started.

After the movie I meandered myself around the long way to the metro for the quick ride home. After a nice long walk and stop for some Japanese noodles I found my way home and snuck a quick lazy nap.

After the nap I consumed the final pages of the book. It ended well as I imagined it would. By well I don’t mean well for the characters, but rather well written with all of the right twists and implied conclusions.

The gist without giving it all away:

First off, you really need to go buy this short cheap and very insight-filled book. It is not only an amazing piece of literature, but it is timely. The basic idea behind the book is that the farm animals in an effort to liberate themselves from tyrannical rule kick the farmer from the premises so that they can pursue a farm life where all animals are equal and the subjugation of animals by the farmer becomes a thing of the past.

My favorite character (this is the sort of thing you write in a book report, right?) is really a tie between Boxer the horse and Benjamin the mule. Boxer personifies a very natural inclination toward fair and balanced way of imagining the world, extending confidence in the best intentions of people around them, filled with hope and a willingness to work hard toward justice and fairness. His greatest and most admirable strength is without a doubt his greatest weakness. And his end is the perfect analogic personification of his utility. Read it to find out my meaning.

Benjamin the mule is, well, all of the things you might imagine a mule to be. His favorite line is, “Donkeys live a long time.” He doesn’t get involved too much in the story itself except for a few key moments.

As the story proceeds the pigs lead the farm away from the ideology of the tragic times under the farmer to the hope of better days out from under the farmers rule. But as the farm animals are asked to give more than ever before and promised to gain more than ever before, and as questions are asked about the sacrifice they should make as “good comrades” they are met with revisions and exaggerations of the past sorrows under the farmer and encouraged to stay the new course because “You wouldn’t want (the farmer) to come back would you?” Clearly the hope for the future of this new Animal Farm run by the animals equally hinges upon their adherence to these new drastic sacrifices they would make due to the decisions of the pigs who would lead them.

Spoiler Alert (don’t read on if you don’t want to know what happens):

By the end of the story the pigs have simply wielded their plans, their rules upon the animals having propagandized them into either chanting the unfounded accolades of the leader pig Napoleon or if the animals decent then they are drowned out in the noise of the sheep (another analogy) bleating slogans while the pigs (an obvious analogy) change the rules in an autocratic manner all the while pretending that all animals are created equal “but some, more equal than others.”

What is a most interesting unintentional prognostication from the author to modern events is the character of a pig early in the story that in a desire to protect the farm goes to battle with the people who attempt to invade the farm. All of the animals go to war and in the end that pig is injured in battle but before and after the injury makes a valiant effort to defend the farm. Snowball (the other pig) is awarded for his valiant bravery on behalf of the new farm. When Napoleon and Snowball come to disagreements about how to help the farm or defend the farm, Napoleon publically rejects all of the plans and ideas of Snowball. Eventually Napoleon manipulates the farm and runs Snowball off, reinventing history and turning him into a war criminal rather than a valiant defending of the farm. Without Snowball to contend with Napoleon claims Snowballs best ideas for himself and continues to defame Snowball or anyone who thinks like Snowball.

I think this is an amazing little story. Historically, it is a great warning against communism. But contemporarily it is a warning to Americans everywhere to not be like the animals on the farm in the story. Whether the sheep or dogs or Boxer the horse or Benjamin the mule, despite our strengths we should be well aware of our weaknesses and not be afraid of confronting the weaknesses in the political plans that surround us (whether in the context of communism, socialism or democracy.) Whether the government is saying we had better be OK with some decision or fear the economic downturn, we can’t be sheep or chickens or cows or mules that simply assume that our options are do what they want or something worse will befall us. Whether the government demands that we embrace new taxes else we will bring impending anthropomorphic global warming to the planet, we don’t have to believe that the answer is only found in taxes else something worse befalls us. And whether the government says that subjugating American parents to laws managed by a new U.N. Treaty supported by 90 senators that supersedes a parents ability to raise their kids the way they prefer else a worse thing befall us, we do not need to bow our sensibilities to this and many other fear-mongering approaches that demand from us agreement or doom. While I love the character that is Boxer, heaven help us if our response to our leaders becomes “If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be true.”