A review by ec_newman
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

4.0

I'm not a vegetarian despite reading this book, but I would understand why others would choose to do so after the mess of turn of the century meat packing factories. And I am not convinced that today, our food is much better. The plight of the Lithuanian family is horrifying, disaster and misfortune attack them and each one worse than the previous, so much so that it's hard to muster up sympathy half-way through the book because you're desensitized. The last few chapters are incredibly preachy about Socialism, in fact one of the speeches I thought if I could replace Socialism with God and a few other church words, it would pretty much be a sermon. I felt like the book lost its way in the end as it's not about the character of Jurgis anymore, but about the ideology, which makes sense when reading about Sinclair's life.

But for the story in me, I wanted more for Jurgis and the ending to his story. It's a great book, of course. Changed so much about America and I can't argue with its impact. I like the fact that it challenges everything said about America being a 'land of opportunity' and the parallel between the animals physically slaughters and the souls of the working men and women slaughtered. Truly, worth reading and probably worth reading more than once.