A review by vex97
The Jungle: The Uncensored Original Edition by Upton Sinclair

1.0

DNF. I believe Sinclair seriously erred by writing a fictional story instead of an investigative journalism piece à la, for example, Karl Marx's description of horrible working conditions of 20th century English laborers. While Sinclair's descriptions of the inhumane working conditions and horrors of the meat packing plants were well-detailed and harrowing, the overall narrative story is not written well. Sinclair untactfully throws the protaganist Jurgis into every possible misfortune that a workingman of the early 1900's could experience. Over the course of the book, Jurgis' ordeals reach the point of ridiculousness and disbelief. The result is that instead of emphasizing with Jurgis and being emotionally moved by his suffering (and thereby more open to Socialist ideas), I was left thinking after each chapter: "Seriously? How hasn't Jurgis killed himself yet?" Furthermore, the book is too long—having the reader slog through 300+ pages of Jurgis falling into one tragedy into another with no respite makes for bad reading and diminishes the intended effect of the book as socialist propaganda. (And I provide this critique as someone who is quite open to socialist ideas.)