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ANIMAL FARM EPILOGUE
After George Orwell wrote Animal Farm (1945), Martin Knox wrote Animal Farm 2 (2021), The books satirize political and economic conditions, in a revolutionary setting from 1917 to about 2023, as one continuous narrative, paralleling historical events.
After the revolution had deposed the farmer, The animals were subjected to the oppressive control of a totalitarian regime. It had a pig dictator, a shambolic and arbitrary ideology and fearful animal masses.
A ruling class of pigs runs the farm corruptly in order to live luxuriously, keeping the other animals in penury. At the end of Orwell’s book, the animals are in a hopeless situation.
The sequel by Knox considers a microcosm of their predicament, magnified in a Cold War confrontation on Caruba Island, under pig rule. The Social Republic, which is a pig superpower and a Democratic Union of free nations, manoeuvre for geopolitical control of World energy supplies.
The animals learn climate science and question the pigs’ closure of their coal mine, the only income they have. The pigs use energy supply restrictions to make the workers superfluous and prolong their totalitarian rule.
To divert attention from internal hardship and dissent, the pigs enjoin the animals to invade a neighbouring territory, but they revolt again and oust the pigs. The animals get democratic rule at last.
Animal Farm is a story in which ordinary animals achieve, against the odds, liberation by reasoning, science and bravery. They learn to counter the misinformation of leaders, listening to each other and to elders. The setting is both familiar and dystopian. The books show the fallacy of totalitarian rule. The animals could operate Animal Farm much better. Pig rule is not needed. The animals succeed, in a story both uplifting and humorous.
Animal Farm 2 is available on Amazon. For reviews see: martinknox.com
HOW COULD CLIMATE CHANGE FARM ANIMALS?
Animal Farm is a novel written by George Orwell on the cusp of peace in 1945. It satirises a new world of peace threatened by totalitarianism. He uses farm animals to portray, simply and honestly, the inhumanity and logical deficiencies of the incipient Soviet system.
Martin Knox has written a sequel, Animal Farm 2 (2021). The story is a new episode of the satire, with farm animals struggling under totalitarianism which continues after the end of the Cold War up to modern times. It updates us on a world that is adjusting to central control of responses to climate change and a new world without access to fossil fuels. The animals debate changes imposed on them, revealing science that has been faked. They want to revolt again, but will they be able to escape from rule by pigs this time?
Available on Amazon. For reviews see martinknox.com
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION SATIRISED
In the novel Animal Farm 2 by Martin Knox, George Orwell’s 1945 satire is brought up to date with recent events, after the revolution replaced the farmer with a series of autocratic pig presidents parodying Stalin to Yeltsin. When President Dimitri perpetuates his presidency, will the animals tolerate his campaign to restore an empire which crumbled in 1989? Or will they revolt again, to achieve the liberation the animals have wanted for so long?
Available on Amazon. Reviews: martinknox.com
ANIMAL FARM 2 – why a sequel?
It has been 75 years since George Orwell’s prescient satirical novel Animal Farm was published. A lot has happened since then: the Space Race; the Cold War; break up of the USSR; climate change; animal liberation; emergence of China as a superpower.
Totalitarianism has been rife, as Orwell warned. The animals are in the midst of these changes, their lives perilously affected by the manoeuvring of their pigs and the superpowers. They learn pidgin English and science, realising climate science is flawed and requiring different action. A satirical sequel continues what Orwell started, bringing it to a logical, unexpected and optimistic conclusion.
martinknox.com
