The Jungle

Rating:
Summary: Great book, but not what you expect
Review: Most people talk about how this book will make you swear off meat and just be horrified with the working coniditions these people were put in and how poorly they were treated. While that was part of it, the main thing I got from this book was the look into politics and the explanations of how socialism would be better for America than capitalism. This is a very good book, but not what I expected.

Rating:
Summary: it is a treatise rather than a book
Review: the book is not bad but all the incredible things that happen to his main character are a little bit hard to swallow. also in the end the book becomes more a treatise about comunism than a novel, but it is no so bad after all. the author was trying to do two things at the same time, writing a novel and denouncing the atrocities committed by the capitalist. luis mendez

Rating:
Summary: Very good detail but repititive
Review: Sinclair goes into excellent detail in The Jungle but the first 3/4's of the book are very repetitive. The book gets more interesting towards the end when Jurgis becomes politically involved, and graft and socialism come into the story. Good portrayal of socialism through a the eyes of a poor meat packer.

Rating:
Summary: I expected a story about the packing industry
Review: I read this book because it was supposed to make me not eat meat. Well- the gross stuff you here about is all at the beginning. After that, it becomes a political treatise. I was very disappointed to find out the wonderful story about the problems in the packing industry was really just a cry for socialism! The story was good- I really enjoyed it; except for the last couple of chapters when you discover socialism will solve capitalism's problems.

Rating:
Summary: book to read
Review: i thought that this book was the best book i have ever read. it was moving, yet exiting.i think sinclaire is a genius , and you should all read it .

Rating:
Summary: This book is disgusting but informative
Review: The Jungle , by Upton Sinclair, takes us through the life of an immigrant family who arrives in America with dreams of wealth, freedom, and oportunity, but unfortunately enters a jungle of human suffering after discovering the conditions of the meat packing industries. The book also tells us how in the early 1900s, spoiled meat mixed with other carcasses was sold due to no governmental regulations. Among this family, a group of Lithuanian immigrants, were Jurgis and Ona, a young couple who had just married. Jurgis and the rest of the family, suffered humiliations, poverty, and from illnesses. Ona was abused physically and sexually by her boss Oconnor, and that caused for Jurgis to go to jail for trying to kill Oconnor. Due to the bad conditions the family lived in, several members died, among these Ona, who died while giving labor to her second child. Even though The Jungle is a depressing book, I would strongly recommend for more people to read it because after reading it, everyone would be more precocious before buying food!

Rating:
Summary: Powerful until the end.
Review: Jurgis Rudkus is the poster boy for the oppressed underdog, tenacious in his quest for fairness and the decency of his family, even at the expense of his own dignity and humanity. His incredibly human story is told by an unabashedly sympathetic voice, which makes it all the more heartbreaking when he fails, all the more uplifting when he succeeds. The Jungle, on some levels, may be seen as a sardonic meditation on the effects of injustice and exploitation. At times, there are even reflections of dark comedy hidden between the lines. But the story never ventures far from the tragedian's sleight of hand. Irony of ironies, The Jungle is hopeful and cynical at the same time. The problem falls in the final fifty pages. It is here that the novel degenerates into monotonous political drivel. As Jurgis listens with rapt attention to speech after speech on the importance of Socialism, the audience is forced to endure page after page of endless bureaucratic chatter. An attempted brain-washing by Sinclair has been cleverly added here at the end of a compelling story about the trials and tribulations of not knowing the language.

Rating:
Summary: Sinclair's sensational The Jungle is unforgetable.
Review: The Jungle is a hearbreaking story of an immigrant family's struggle to survive in America. The family of Jurgis and Ona came from Lithuina in hopes of a better life. However, after months in America, their faith in America was torn to little pieces. Ona and Jurgis's lives as a married couple was nothing like expected. The pressure of work, poverty, and illness stilfled their spirits. This book also accurately revealed a sound historical document of the life and suffering of factory workers during the early years of this century. Antanas had to shovel the residues of chemically treated meat onto a truck headed for the cannery. Jurgis saw pregnant cows butchered and their unborn calves illegally mixed with other carcasses. Jurgis began to see how the packer operate. They sold spoiled or adulterated meat without qualms. Their workers were exposed to awful occupational diseases, yet the packers took no steps to protect the employees. They stole water from the city and polluted Chicago, and the city government turned their heads. After the death of Antanas, Ona, his two sons, and the lost of the house the family had struggled so hard to keep, Jurgis entered the world of crimes. He learned how Chicago's criminal underworld helped to corrupt the city's government.

Rating:
Summary: Good, yet very gross
Review: O.k I read this for school and I was really disgusted by some of the stuff in this book. I am so very glad that I never lived in this icky time in our history. I really liked it though.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent; just ignore the ending
Review: The Jungle is moving, powerful, and well-written. The one passage on page 95 (in my edition) which begins, "For twenty-five years of Antanas Rudkus and his son and dwelt in the forest, and it was hard to part in this way..", is enough to ensure the Jungle a permanent place on my shelf. This, despite an obviously politically motivated ending. If you are a capitalist like me, don't let the miguided Socialist tripe bother you; just ignore it, and read the rest of what is otherwise a most excellent work.