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A review by msand3
World's End by Upton Sinclair
4.0
I have yet to be disappointed by a novel from Upton Sinclair, whose work spans the first six decades of the early 20th century. By the time he began this Lanny Budd novel in 1940 -- the first of an eventual eleven-novel series totaling over 7,000 pages that would chronicle Lanny’s life between 1913 and 1950 -- Sinclair was among a handful of major socialist novelists remaining in the United States.
World’s End lacks the fire and sense of immediacy of Sinclair’s early work -- [b:The Jungle|41681|The Jungle|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1332140681l/41681._SY75_.jpg|1253187], [b:King Coal|204391|King Coal|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347328757l/204391._SX50_.jpg|197781], [b:Oil!|54847|Oil!|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388293109l/54847._SY75_.jpg|3001768], etc. -- but that’s because its goal is not to engage in muckraking a current social ill, but to trace the course of America’s rise to industrial power in the early 20th century. Lanny (born in 1900) is obviously a character symbolic of the U.S. industrial class as it comes of age between two world wars. We see his early education among the privileged in Europe, as he doesn’t even set foot in the U.S. until he is 17. There is a section where he discovers the infamous slums of East London (which is clearly a nod to socialist classics like Jack London’s [b:The People of the Abyss|113250|The People of the Abyss|Jack London|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349063625l/113250._SX50_.jpg|1036883] and Orwell’s [b:The Road to Wigan Pier|30553|The Road to Wigan Pier|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414451091l/30553._SY75_.jpg|1034643]) and is first introduced to the aims of socialism that are so antithetical to his family’s war profiteering empire, emphasizing that Lanny’s story is a microcosm of the U.S. at the turn-of-the-century.
The grandson of a munitions baron, Lanny learns that the impending war has more to do with capitalism than democracy: money, oil, and post-war power. His American family (i.e., the U.S.) sells weapons to any buyer. Since the U.K. and France have more money than Germany, the U.S. sells weapons to them (while remaining “neutral” *ahem*), but ultimately joins the war, naturally allying with the countries who buy the most weapons, and who put the U.S. in the best position to have access to oil in the post-war division of spoils. Sinclair is writing in 1940, so he makes very clear the link between capitalism and fascism that would come to a head in Spain and Germany in the 1930s, the seeds of which were sown in the First World War. Lanny’s grandfather, despite manufacturing and selling the arms that will kill millions, preaches fundamental Christian dogma and leads the local Bible study on his days off from negotiating weapons contracts with warring nations. (As P.F. Sloan would write 25 years later of American cultural values: “Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace…”)
The novel is unique from other American WWI novels (Cather’s [b:One of Ours|543137|One of Ours|Willa Cather|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349072170l/543137._SY75_.jpg|2205446], Dos Passos’ [b:Three Soldiers|7105|Three Soldiers|John Dos Passos|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1165606453l/7105._SY75_.jpg|1245376], Trumbo’s [b:Johnny Got His Gun|51606|Johnny Got His Gun|Dalton Trumbo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925458l/51606._SY75_.jpg|180461], etc.) in that the action moves WEST across the Atlantic: it begins in Europe and only then transitions to the U.S. when the war begins. Sinclair is offering the perspective not of the working poor who are tricked into joining the war for the illusory ideal of “making the world safe for democracy,” but of the upper classes who fund the war and make the profits, all from the security of their mansions. As the heir of a wealthy industrialist family, Lanny has the opposite experience of poor American working class men who are raised in the States before being shipped off as canon fodder in Europe: he lives a life of privilege in France, only to flee to the safety of Connecticut while America enters the war. Only after the war does Lanny return as a secretary to a member of Wilson’s delegation as The Big Three attempt to remake the world -- leading to the complications that would not be straightened out until the Second World War.
It is this second half of the book that is the most fascinating, as Sinclair charts both Lanny’s gradual drift to socialism and the political machinations that would continue to play out on the world stage through the Cold War and beyond. The U.S. and France both attempt to deal with Germany in their own way (feeling sympathy and punishing, respectively), while hypocritically advocating for post-war “self determination” while simultaneously ruling over world empires along with the U.K. The scene is set for Lanny’s young adulthood, America’s rapid ascendency in the world, and eventually the rise of fascism in Europe before WWII.
I look forward to following Budd’s journey in the next ten books of the series. Each one is 600-800 pages long, and Sinclair intended these to be one massive 7,000+ page novel, so I imagine it will take me a few years to get through. It’s easy to see why this would lead Sinclair to receive the Pulitzer for the third novel in the series, [b:Dragon's Teeth|39078166|Dragon's Teeth (World's End Lanny Budd, #3)|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1520471454l/39078166._SY75_.jpg|16805421], in 1942.
World’s End lacks the fire and sense of immediacy of Sinclair’s early work -- [b:The Jungle|41681|The Jungle|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1332140681l/41681._SY75_.jpg|1253187], [b:King Coal|204391|King Coal|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347328757l/204391._SX50_.jpg|197781], [b:Oil!|54847|Oil!|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388293109l/54847._SY75_.jpg|3001768], etc. -- but that’s because its goal is not to engage in muckraking a current social ill, but to trace the course of America’s rise to industrial power in the early 20th century. Lanny (born in 1900) is obviously a character symbolic of the U.S. industrial class as it comes of age between two world wars. We see his early education among the privileged in Europe, as he doesn’t even set foot in the U.S. until he is 17. There is a section where he discovers the infamous slums of East London (which is clearly a nod to socialist classics like Jack London’s [b:The People of the Abyss|113250|The People of the Abyss|Jack London|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349063625l/113250._SX50_.jpg|1036883] and Orwell’s [b:The Road to Wigan Pier|30553|The Road to Wigan Pier|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414451091l/30553._SY75_.jpg|1034643]) and is first introduced to the aims of socialism that are so antithetical to his family’s war profiteering empire, emphasizing that Lanny’s story is a microcosm of the U.S. at the turn-of-the-century.
The grandson of a munitions baron, Lanny learns that the impending war has more to do with capitalism than democracy: money, oil, and post-war power. His American family (i.e., the U.S.) sells weapons to any buyer. Since the U.K. and France have more money than Germany, the U.S. sells weapons to them (while remaining “neutral” *ahem*), but ultimately joins the war, naturally allying with the countries who buy the most weapons, and who put the U.S. in the best position to have access to oil in the post-war division of spoils. Sinclair is writing in 1940, so he makes very clear the link between capitalism and fascism that would come to a head in Spain and Germany in the 1930s, the seeds of which were sown in the First World War. Lanny’s grandfather, despite manufacturing and selling the arms that will kill millions, preaches fundamental Christian dogma and leads the local Bible study on his days off from negotiating weapons contracts with warring nations. (As P.F. Sloan would write 25 years later of American cultural values: “Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace…”)
The novel is unique from other American WWI novels (Cather’s [b:One of Ours|543137|One of Ours|Willa Cather|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349072170l/543137._SY75_.jpg|2205446], Dos Passos’ [b:Three Soldiers|7105|Three Soldiers|John Dos Passos|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1165606453l/7105._SY75_.jpg|1245376], Trumbo’s [b:Johnny Got His Gun|51606|Johnny Got His Gun|Dalton Trumbo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925458l/51606._SY75_.jpg|180461], etc.) in that the action moves WEST across the Atlantic: it begins in Europe and only then transitions to the U.S. when the war begins. Sinclair is offering the perspective not of the working poor who are tricked into joining the war for the illusory ideal of “making the world safe for democracy,” but of the upper classes who fund the war and make the profits, all from the security of their mansions. As the heir of a wealthy industrialist family, Lanny has the opposite experience of poor American working class men who are raised in the States before being shipped off as canon fodder in Europe: he lives a life of privilege in France, only to flee to the safety of Connecticut while America enters the war. Only after the war does Lanny return as a secretary to a member of Wilson’s delegation as The Big Three attempt to remake the world -- leading to the complications that would not be straightened out until the Second World War.
It is this second half of the book that is the most fascinating, as Sinclair charts both Lanny’s gradual drift to socialism and the political machinations that would continue to play out on the world stage through the Cold War and beyond. The U.S. and France both attempt to deal with Germany in their own way (feeling sympathy and punishing, respectively), while hypocritically advocating for post-war “self determination” while simultaneously ruling over world empires along with the U.K. The scene is set for Lanny’s young adulthood, America’s rapid ascendency in the world, and eventually the rise of fascism in Europe before WWII.
I look forward to following Budd’s journey in the next ten books of the series. Each one is 600-800 pages long, and Sinclair intended these to be one massive 7,000+ page novel, so I imagine it will take me a few years to get through. It’s easy to see why this would lead Sinclair to receive the Pulitzer for the third novel in the series, [b:Dragon's Teeth|39078166|Dragon's Teeth (World's End Lanny Budd, #3)|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1520471454l/39078166._SY75_.jpg|16805421], in 1942.