The Jungle (1906)

This graphic version made easy reading and the illustrations were amazing. I would have to read Sinclair's version to know if liberties were taken. ( )

Here's what I wrote after reading in 1990: "Easy to see why the book caused a dramatic decrease in red meat consumption! Upton Sinclair exposed the digusting guts of the beef industry and strongly lobbied for socialism and rights of the worker. Jurgis, the pathetic hero, is tramatized by one "bad deal" after another. His honesty, integrity, energy, enthuasism are all driven from (him?) in the working man's America of the early 1900's / late 1800's." 2022 comment: This book deserves 5 stars for its positive impacts (Meat Inspection Act, Pure Food and Drug Act), if for nothing else. ( )

Each successive page was an excruciating step closer to total despair. It's a relief when Jurgis finally stomps all over on the garden of his soul. By the end just reading the socialist revival section is almost an ecstatic experience when compared to the misery that precedes it, which I suppose was the point.

2008/05/31
It strikes me that religious nature of Jurgis' conversion is pretty apt and probably deliberate. Although the connections he makes help him find a job and the cause gives his life meaning and purpose, the movement itself is sustained by promises of a soon coming utopia that never actually arrives. The parallels to the commonly cited communist critique of Christianity are glaring. ( )

I was expecting to read a book that would gross me out of eating animals for a while. The description was there ... but can words really describe what was happening in the meat packer factories? One can only imagine the sounds in the factory and the smells.

It turned out that I was more disgusted by the exploitation of immigratnts who didn't know any better and really thought they were [b:on the road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21E8H3D1JSL._SL75_.jpg|3355573] to the American dream.

I was surprised to see this as such an anti-capitalist book .... with a conclusion preaching the virtues of socialism!! Well, at least it was a happy ending of sorts. ( )

Sinclair is a master at depicting the plight of the working class in such a way that we feel deeply sorry for the characters whose lives are ruined by the avarice of the Beef Trust. This novel is gorgeous in its depiction of what can happen to people who are caught in the crossfire when greed is left to run amok, and in many respects, these same troubles (in mitigated forms) still exist today, both domestically and internationally. These bits of praise notwithstanding, Sinclair tips his hand a bit too heavily (for me, at least) near the end of this book, and those who wish a rich read free of "painfully obvious" propaganda can stop at the end of the twenty-eighth chapter. Much to my disappointment, the last three chapters are a shameless manifesto for socialism that hardly bears any weight on or relevance to the plot and characters to which we readers grow so thoroughly attached. Case in point, by the end of the piece, our beloved Jurgis is little more than a supporting character, shifted to the background to allow more "eloquent speakers" to defend the merits of socialism. However, if articulate arguments for socialism are your delight (and I must confess they are not mine), then the last three chapters of this book should bring you as much pleasure as the beauty of the plot which precedes it, for it is quite apparent that Sinclair had both thorough knowledge of and unbridled passion for this ideology he so unabashedly preached. ( )