I just finished Animal Farm, and all throughout reading it I was somewhat disappointed. I’ve always heard this book to be a literary work of art, and while I certainly understood the themes, they were so.. simple. The writing wasn’t complex, or layered, everything was very boldfaced and easy understand. It was clear what points he was trying to make and save a few twists, most of it was fairly predictable.
So after finishing it I decided to read up on George Orwell and it was then that I realized, that was exactly what he intended to do. Contrary to many authors, he seemed to reject the idea of highly complex or intellectual material, stating that unnecessarily using larger words or more puzzling metaphors should be avoided. His goal was to have his message reach “the ordinary people” as he began to champion in his later life. It was in my own intellectual elitism that I felt the book should have been more layered, or even tougher to digest to the fullest extent… But why? What sets his writing apart in Animal Farm from other books commenting on similar issues is that he aimed to make it as simple as possible, so that the audience able to reach the information was as large as possible.
He was raised by his parents to be an upper class intellectual and he rejected all of it, essentially saying it was a group saturated with hypocritical, elitist bullshit and we should instead focus on the working class people who are more real than any other group in society. So to that I say I’ve reached a new found respect for Orwell, for he exposed me to my own subconscious elitism that I hope to rid myself of.
by thelryan