The Jungle

Rating:
Summary: A Great History Fiction
Review: Upton Sinclair's the Jungle is a distressing and touching story of the immigrant life in America during the early years of this century. Jurgis, Ona, and their families came to America from Lithuania to live a better life. After some time, reality set it. Their faith in America remained though. America was not what they had expected, especially once Ona and Jurgis were married. There was a constant pressure to work, but no matter where they turned they were poverty-stricken. Jurgis insisted Ona not work, but their financial situation demanded her to. This historically accurate book displays and reveals the horrific factory work and the workers suffering. Jurgis job descriptions were unbelievable. He was asked to stay after one day from work to butcher pregnant cows and cows that had gone down or ones that were sick and had boils all over them. Their meat was then mixed with all the uncontaminated meat. Jurgis then realized how the packers operated. They sold this spoiled, contaminated, or adulterated meat without thinking twice. The workers were exposed to horrible diseases, had to work harsh working condition, were not paid for days off. The employers did not care because if they quit or would not do the work, there were plenty of people who would do the work and needed a job. Throughout the novel, it seems no matter where the family turns they cannot get ahead. After Antanas, wife Ona, and his two sons die, and Jurgis is forced to give up the house, he enters crime with a friend he met in jail. Jurgis found out quickly just how corrupt Chicago and city government was.

Rating:
Summary: Socialist Pamphlet
Review: An interesting book that opened my eyes to the horrid abuse of the common working man during the industrialization of America. It's amazing the awful conditions that people were forced to endure. I had read of this in history classes but never fully realized the desperate situation these people lived until reading this book.
Through Sinclair's style of writing I found myself an outside observer of the main character's life. I did not so much feel that I came to understand the character as I watched externally. I did find myself feeling sorry for those who's story was told. I thought the book was written well, with an aim to reveal the horrible conditions of the common man.
My biggest criticism of the book involves the overall mood of the book. I thought it quickly changed from a story of the hardships of a poor immigrant to a vehicle for Socialist propaganda. The introduction of Socialist ideology was interesting at first but near the end became the entire story. I was somewhat disappointed by this conclusion.
Overall a good read, but only for those who enjoy reading and see literature as a source of knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: I don't think I would have read it if i wasn't forced to.
Review: I thought the book was good but long. It seemed to take forever to get through it. The foreign names also aided in my confusion. It really tells about the time period and their lack of knowledge related to health concerns. It was a good book but some parts tended to make me sick. If it wasn't for a class project I probably would have never read it.

Rating:
Summary: Bad
Review: Bad book toooo manyyyy words n not enough pitures

Rating:
Summary: Unrelenting exposé of the capitalist meatgrinder
Review: Upton Sinclair unmasks turn of the century capitalist America in all its calculated savagery. The novel delivers a scathing general picture of the state of working conditions across the U.S., but it is best known for the mercilessly graphic descriptions of the slaughterhouses and packing houses of Chicago. The horrific and unsalubrious treatment of animals and meat is easily matched by the brutal treatment of workers, and the slaughterhouse becomes a larger metaphor representing the inhumane functioning of capitalism as a whole.

Beyond the horrors of the factory floors, the narrative is also used very effectively to illustrate the complexities of graft, suppression of worker solidarity, media manipulation, duplicitous mass-marketing, etc., and it is a picture that remains highly relevant in today's world. True, the machinery of exploitation is more refined these days, and outright brutality, at least in North America, has been reduced. The fundamentals, however, are all depressingly familiar in spite of the passage of one hundred years.

The story itself is ostensibly a 'bildungsroman' which follows the experiences of Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus from his arrival in the U.S., to the horrific experiences he and his family suffer at the hands of the meat-packing industry, to his eventual conversion to Socialism. The bulk of the book traces the erosion of the community values which Jurgis brought over from the continent and their replacement with the dog-eat-dog mentality of individualist America. Jurgis eventually learns the ropes, but in the process, he is transformed into an unscrupulous monster consumed by self-interest. But at the very end of the book, even as he faces total financial and emotional ruin, an inspirational speech opens his eyes to an alternative vision of hope: that of International Socialism.

This latter part of the story - which takes up the last 40 pages or so of the 400-page book - is much weaker than the rest. It is not because of any inherent weakness in the ideas, but rather it is the way Sinclair seems to have tired of bringing them alive with a credible narrative. Thus, for example, the emotional implications of Jurgis's epiphany are explored only very superficially (as opposed to the relatively thorough treatment given to the disasters which befall him earlier), and this sudden change of focus leaves his transformation looking somewhat contrived.

Nevertheless, if the last 40 pages are a disappointment in literary terms, the previous 350 are absolutely outstanding. Five stars are well-deserved, even if the fifth is slightly tarnished....

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful language and a depressing plot
Review: Before starting my sophmore year of high school, I was given a 'summer reading list', which included The Jungle. The Jungle has been a required read for students for many years. That said, Iet me add that I am glad to have read The Jungle, but I probably would not have picked it out on my own.

Upton Sinclair covers three main issues in The Jungle. The first is the absolute poverty of imigrant families,compared to the wealthy upper class. The second issue taken up by Sinclair is the meat prodution industry. Sinclair spares his readers nothing when it comes to grisly descriptions of what exactly is put in the 'meat' that is then sold to the starving poor. The final issue is Capitalism at it's worst, compared to the 'perfect' Socialism government. Mixed with these important social concerns is a plot about an imigrant family that moves to the U.S. with high hopes for a better life of luxury.

The first thing I noticed about The Jungle is complex and beautiful language and sentence structure, that seems to be lacking in many books. (At least books aimed at my age group.) The plot is very depressing, just when you think nothing else can go wrong, it does. Jurgis, the main character, and his family face every obstacle imaginable.

When Jurgis comes to America he is amazed by the 'human machines' of the processing plants. Soon however, Jurgis and his family learn to resent the system that they were first so enchanted with. Toward the middle of the book, Jurgis becomes part of the very system he used to hate, and aids in oppressing other workers. I feel that this is because Sinclair is trying to show the reader how the system of 'wage-slavery' can corrupt even the best people. The end of the books is spent telling the advantages of Socialism and Communism.

I rated The Jungle three stars because the value of the issues Sinclair takes up are important, even 96 years after the book was written. I downgraded the rating because the plot is sometimes forced, and the characters are not fully developed. This book should be looked at for the value of the issues, not for it's value as a novel.

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading if you're a serious reader
Review: This novel is clearly the work of a young man -- a young man aghast at the inhumanity of unfettered capitalism and enamored with the boundless promise of socialism. The very young, the untraveled and the naïve are the persons most likely to be susceptible to the lures of utopian philosophies (witness the demographics of the "anti-globalization" protesters at any given meeting of the industrialized nations), and Sinclair is definitely in the grasp of his ideology.

This novel, as we are reminded in the book's notes and Afterword, was the impetus for the addition of meat cleanliness standards to the Pure Food Law of 1906. This is a remarkable feat for any writer, and certainly many owe a debt of gratitude to Sinclair.

_The Jungle_ is noteworthy, in my opinion, for another remarkable feat, one I have not seen mentioned: Sinclair correctly identified some of the anti-competitive forces acting on the U.S. economy at the turn of the century -- many of which still act similarly on today's U.S. and world economies. He wrote of the Beef Trust, the Railroad Trust and the Oil Trust. Today we have to contend with many of the same forces, plus the Sugar Trust, the Dairy Trust, the Entertainment Trust, the Pharmaceutical Trust, the Sports Trust, the Political Trust, the Insurance Trust and so many more! Don't get me wrong: I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Free Market Capitalist, the operative phrase being "Free Market." The sad fact is there isn't too much Free Market Capitalism going on these days. Adam Smith wrote, in _The Wealth of Nations_, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but their conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." [Vol. I, book I, Chapter 10.] The point here is two-fold: One --There are forces acting against the individual at all levels and in all arenas of our lives. Our options are total acquiescence or total indifference. Two -- Human nature is what it is: The strong will always seek to subjugate the meek; the clever will always seek to delude the slow. We must decide to lead, follow or get out of the way, as the saying goes. (My personal choice is to get the hell out of the way.) Utopian philosophies are children's fairly tales, more fantastic than any work of science fiction I can recall. (I remember reading a story about some spontaneous mutation that caused everyone to develop wheels where their feet had been, putting an end to pollution, traffic problems, the oil shortage, wars, etc. I read this story just before I read Marx's description of the Proletariat Revolution for the first time. I recall sitting bemused as these two fantasies juxtaposed themselves in my mind, unable to imagine how Marx pulled the wool over so many people's eyes for so long. Of course, at that time I was very young, untraveled and naïve. I've since learned that most people will believe anything that's properly pre-digested and sweetened just enough. It's called advertising!)

From a purely literary perspective, this book is much less than perfect. The writing is tedious and labored in many spots. The characters are not complete; at best they're partial sketches. Jurgis Rudkus, being the main character, should be fleshed out, yet he is so slightly written that often the reader is left feeling that he or she is watching a paper cutout being manipulated. Sinclair's obvious enchantment with socialism is embarrassing at first, then annoying. But this book is so much more than storytelling that the reader should press on and finish it, if for no other reason than to say he or she did.

One final note: The edition I read had an Afterword by Barry Sears of the Zone diet fame. I may be overly cynical, but I found it to be self-serving and mostly a commercial for Mr. Sears' (Ph. D.) books. Ignore it or buy a different edition.

Rating:
Summary: How much has really changed?
Review: Excellent book that tells the story of Jurgis, a Lithuanian immigrant who finds himself stuck in the Chicago stockyards. It traces his life in America, telling about all the horridness in the meat packing industry, which prompted the Food and Drug Act shortly after the book was written. It's a true account of what went on in the early 1900's, told in a fictional sort of way. It then proceeds through different manners of living at the bottom of society (i.e., theft, prostitution, political graft, etc.). The last few chapters, though, are mainly Sinclair preaching and raving about the benefits of socialism, which I think ends the story of Jurgis earlier than it needed to be. However, this book was written for the purpose of change during that time, and it probably did help considerably. However, if you also read "Fast Food Nation," which I highly reccommend, you have to wonder, really, how much has really changed? The faces may be different, but is the public not still led to believe by the government and the packing industry that all is fine and dandy with what we eat? Ugh, read both books... they'll scare you.

Rating:
Summary: This book turned my friend into a vegan; very influential
Review: This book follows the struggles of an immigrant family to stay alive in the cruel meat-packing industry of early 1900's America. Not for the weak of heart or stomach, The Jungle goes into great detail about the unjust practices of the bosses, the police, the politicians, and the gruesome inner-workings of "packingtown" and the meat that is sent out daily to the American public.
What I liked about this book was Sinclair's truthfullness; how he held nothing back. This is an original muckraking novel, and Sinclair did all he could to reveal the harsh truths of graft, vice, crime, and scandal in American industry at the time. He uses great detail and description in this writing.
Upton Sinclair writes with such passion that the reader really feels for his characters. He is good at being a persuasive writer, but towards the end of the book, I thought he went a little bit overboard with Socialist propaganda. To me, it seemed to waeken his argument about the problems, to be so one-sided about the solution. I suppose subtlety is not the point of this book, but the arguments for Socialism seemed a bit to blatant and overwhelming.
I would reccomend this book for anyone who enjoys quality literature, and who is not squeemish. I think that this is one of those classic books that everyone should read. The Jungle will hold your attention with shocking detail of crime, gore, disease, and "food unfit for human consumption" - but, at the smae time, will provide emotional insight into the human condition. I think this is one of the best books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: O.K ,but not great
Review: Upton Sinclairs' The Jungle is a a story following a family from Lithuania to the United States where they eventually settle down in Packingtown,Il. Upton Sinclair does his best to describe the life that these people might have had and fails miserably. To much has been dramatized to make the reader sympathyze with the characters. Now I'm not saying that these things never happend but to say that the vast majority lived a life much like those of animals "so innocent while they are led to slaughter" is ridiculous. The portrayal of the gangs running the city at the time is very well played out along with descrimbing the "throw away society" that we live in. On the whole I found this book very hard to finish but somewhat of a worth while read.