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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
I have never heard anything about this book, besides its huge impact on the meat industry; I was expecting something much more cut-and-dry, sort of an exposé where Sinclair went into the factories and came out with a gory but dry account of the dealings there - but the story is so much more. It is less about an animal issue, and more about a human rights issue. The story follows an impoverished immigrant family forced to work under grueling conditions with no support from anyone but each other. They are swindled by lawmakers and real estate agents, and their bosses get away with everything because it's them or the streets. I'm honestly surprised that the revolt this book caused so often focuses on the disgusting inner workings of meat packing (which, don't get me wrong, are abhorrent) and not on the conditions the people are forced to work in being shown to more privileged classes. It speaks to labor laws throughout the history of our "great nation," and it hits home for anyone who has ever been afraid of being homeless because their employers won't be held accountable in our capitalist system.
I read this in high school, but was very moved by the visual details of the story. I didn't eat meat for 10 years after I finished reading it and it influenced my decision to be vegetarian today.
I very nearly gave up after the first chapter, it was brutal. I can't for the life of me understand why so many people seem to like the wedding scene. I'm glad I gave it a chance though. Once you get past the initial hope, love, and general sap it's essentially like reading a car crash.
I was hooked on the misery but there were some things that the hearty slathering of other people's misfortune (you can't deny our love of rubbernecking *coughrealitytvcough*) just couldn't make up for. There were a lot of places where Sinclair clearly wrote himself into a corner and just busted out some "dei ex machina" in the form of drastic changes in character personalities and a heaping helping of "Hey what ever happened to so-and-so?" "Oh they died by...idk...being eaten alive by rats." All in a desperate attempt to steer the book toward a 100+ page decent into pro socialist rambling. I assure you it's quite literally rambling.
I'd like to warn anyone considering or just starting the book not to get attached to anyone but I didn't find that a problem. It may just be me but I honestly never felt any amount of fondness for the characters. It's not that they were unlikable it was just somehow obvious that they didn't actually matter. It's not a story about Jurgis Rudkus and every poor soul sucked into Packingtown or even the horrors of the meatpacking industry of yesteryear, it's a detailed portrait of the evils of the overpowered, the money-hungry.
Despite my problems with it I'd certainly recommend it to anyone and everyone. While people these days are busy worrying about Big Brother watching it's easy to forget that he's still milking you for every cent and persuading you to work to death so his wallet can get a little bit fatter. We're regressing. We've become too comfortable. We learned nothing from our mistakes.
I was hooked on the misery but there were some things that the hearty slathering of other people's misfortune (you can't deny our love of rubbernecking *coughrealitytvcough*) just couldn't make up for. There were a lot of places where Sinclair clearly wrote himself into a corner and just busted out some "dei ex machina" in the form of drastic changes in character personalities and a heaping helping of "Hey what ever happened to so-and-so?" "Oh they died by...idk...being eaten alive by rats." All in a desperate attempt to steer the book toward a 100+ page decent into pro socialist rambling. I assure you it's quite literally rambling.
I'd like to warn anyone considering or just starting the book not to get attached to anyone but I didn't find that a problem. It may just be me but I honestly never felt any amount of fondness for the characters. It's not that they were unlikable it was just somehow obvious that they didn't actually matter. It's not a story about Jurgis Rudkus and every poor soul sucked into Packingtown or even the horrors of the meatpacking industry of yesteryear, it's a detailed portrait of the evils of the overpowered, the money-hungry.
Despite my problems with it I'd certainly recommend it to anyone and everyone. While people these days are busy worrying about Big Brother watching it's easy to forget that he's still milking you for every cent and persuading you to work to death so his wallet can get a little bit fatter. We're regressing. We've become too comfortable. We learned nothing from our mistakes.
If you didn't honestly consider the idea of Socialism as a remedy to the evils of Capitalism during this novel, you weren't reading it right. Although the misfortunes Jurigis faces are repetitive and incredulous at times, I believe this only heightens the idea of how tragic the lives of working men often were. Sinclair's novel definitely did what it was made to achieve, in that it made me stop and think about the drawbacks of Capitalism. Despite the somewhat annoying repetition of catastrophe and the obvious Socialist propaganda, I still believe this novel to be an enlightening read.
So in the paper for which I was assigned to read this book, I kept having to erase or comment out the phrase "painfully earnest Socialist" in front of every reference to Upton Sinclair, because dang, this book. Also, it was remarkably helpful to find the free online audio version and listen to it while I wrote and occasionally perk my ears up and go to whatever chapter I'd heard something interesting in.
I reluctantly started reading this for a book club, knowing only that is was some sort of expose of the early 20th century meat industry. To my surprise, it was actually a very readable and compassionate (especially for its time) book and about much more than the meat packing industry. It definitely is trying to make a social-and socialist-point but it does so in a much more entertaining way than other political-message-via-story books, like Constance Maud's No Surrender.
“If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy.”
Am reviewing before I've gone back through to reread and copy the lines I marked...
Impressions, in no particular order:
Having been raised close to Chicago, I was taken by a couple of urban myths that I've heard for years..."Vote early and often!" The politicians in Sinclair's Chicago hire workers to vote under different names, several times in each election. Jurgis, our main character, is very disappointed the first time his vote is bought, because he only voted once.
The Chicago River really did spontaneously combust! I met Jean Shephard once, the author of the stories adapted into A CHRISTMAS STORY, and he told the story about the Calumet River. But, all the waste from the Stockyards really did produce a gas, and lard from processing...and fires did start on the surface of the River!
The book may have inspired new laws to regulate the meatpacking industry, but if someone thinks that's the most important part of the book, I think he is misreading the book. The utter lie of the American Dream for immigrants made me physically sick as I read...just as much as the scenes in the factories. Families came with the intention of working hard, making a life, contributing their labor. And at every turn they were taken advantage of, cheated, lied to. They were literally dumped into an environment they didn't understand and victimized by every person they met.
"I will work harder" -- the first time I read those words, I groaned. These are the same words Orwell put into the mouth of Boxer the heroic horse, the heroic victim of the Communist Animal Farm. How ironic that these words are the beginning of Jurgis's journey to Socialism...still wrapping my mind around that, and wondering of Orwell had read this book.
I love the opening scene...the Lithuanian wedding. This description, the open bar, the open welcome, reminds me of the Polish wedding receptions my friends and I crashed when we were in college. If there was a Polish wedding in the area, we were there.
The utter breakdown of this family was one of the hardest things I've ever read...I kept wondering, 'how much more awful can this get?' and Sinclair had a plan to make it worse. There was no respite for me or for Jurgis.
The Socialism subplot at the end fell flat for me. I know this was, in Sinclair's mind, the big finish, but nothing worked...the arguments out of the mouths of his 'lecturers' didn't feel true, and he tried to pile as many points as he could. I read for character, and I could not wrap my mind around any of these speakers. What I WAS aware of was the fact that finally Jurgis had a job where he was respected, one that wasn't dangerous, and he was learning...learning to read, to think, to write. I was happy for him, but it had nothing to do with Socialism...the connection didn't fit well for me.
The last scene...election results..."Chicago will be ours" Um...how many of those votes were bought, just as they were before? Is Sinclair saying Socialists DID NOT buy votes and vote early and often? The irony of the characters being carried away with glee over an election -- IN CHICAGO seemed the ultimate irony and left me sad beyond measure.
And the big take-away? Not much has changed in over 100 years. We still exploit and target immigrants to do the work no one else will do. We are still dealing with the 1% -- Sinclair even uses that figure! -- the few who enrich themselves with someone else's labor and misfortunes. There were lines that made me think of the school reform landscape, and FAST FOOD NATION fits very neatly into this narrative as well. There will always be those who want to get rich by not doing or producing or creating. There will always be desperate workers who promise to 'work harder,' and will work themselves into the graves.
What is wrong with us?
Am reviewing before I've gone back through to reread and copy the lines I marked...
Impressions, in no particular order:
Having been raised close to Chicago, I was taken by a couple of urban myths that I've heard for years..."Vote early and often!" The politicians in Sinclair's Chicago hire workers to vote under different names, several times in each election. Jurgis, our main character, is very disappointed the first time his vote is bought, because he only voted once.
The Chicago River really did spontaneously combust! I met Jean Shephard once, the author of the stories adapted into A CHRISTMAS STORY, and he told the story about the Calumet River. But, all the waste from the Stockyards really did produce a gas, and lard from processing...and fires did start on the surface of the River!
The book may have inspired new laws to regulate the meatpacking industry, but if someone thinks that's the most important part of the book, I think he is misreading the book. The utter lie of the American Dream for immigrants made me physically sick as I read...just as much as the scenes in the factories. Families came with the intention of working hard, making a life, contributing their labor. And at every turn they were taken advantage of, cheated, lied to. They were literally dumped into an environment they didn't understand and victimized by every person they met.
"I will work harder" -- the first time I read those words, I groaned. These are the same words Orwell put into the mouth of Boxer the heroic horse, the heroic victim of the Communist Animal Farm. How ironic that these words are the beginning of Jurgis's journey to Socialism...still wrapping my mind around that, and wondering of Orwell had read this book.
I love the opening scene...the Lithuanian wedding. This description, the open bar, the open welcome, reminds me of the Polish wedding receptions my friends and I crashed when we were in college. If there was a Polish wedding in the area, we were there.
The utter breakdown of this family was one of the hardest things I've ever read...I kept wondering, 'how much more awful can this get?' and Sinclair had a plan to make it worse. There was no respite for me or for Jurgis.
The Socialism subplot at the end fell flat for me. I know this was, in Sinclair's mind, the big finish, but nothing worked...the arguments out of the mouths of his 'lecturers' didn't feel true, and he tried to pile as many points as he could. I read for character, and I could not wrap my mind around any of these speakers. What I WAS aware of was the fact that finally Jurgis had a job where he was respected, one that wasn't dangerous, and he was learning...learning to read, to think, to write. I was happy for him, but it had nothing to do with Socialism...the connection didn't fit well for me.
The last scene...election results..."Chicago will be ours" Um...how many of those votes were bought, just as they were before? Is Sinclair saying Socialists DID NOT buy votes and vote early and often? The irony of the characters being carried away with glee over an election -- IN CHICAGO seemed the ultimate irony and left me sad beyond measure.
And the big take-away? Not much has changed in over 100 years. We still exploit and target immigrants to do the work no one else will do. We are still dealing with the 1% -- Sinclair even uses that figure! -- the few who enrich themselves with someone else's labor and misfortunes. There were lines that made me think of the school reform landscape, and FAST FOOD NATION fits very neatly into this narrative as well. There will always be those who want to get rich by not doing or producing or creating. There will always be desperate workers who promise to 'work harder,' and will work themselves into the graves.
What is wrong with us?
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
dark
sad
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Though I did find the storyline an interesting one, it took me great effort to finish this book, finding my mind wandering off continuously. I feel like this was not due to the writing style, but maybe it was? Or maybe it wasn't the right time for me to read this. Or perhaps it was because of the characters; I didn't really feel a connection there. Or maybe it just isn't the book for me. I'm leaning towards the latter two, hence my 2 stars.
A stunning adaptation, beautifully illustrated in black and white with bold but sparing bursts of blood red. A rabble-rousing start to the new year.