In March, we will be reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
Please post your thoughts and questions in this thread.
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In March, we will be reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
Please post your thoughts and questions in this thread.
I started reading; 1/10 only so far but I am quite pleasantly surprised. Sinclair's character descriptions are fascinating.
Did a little reading on Sinclair's biography and it is interesting that he has no connection to the people he writes about.
My copy was shipped yesterday ... hopefully it doesn't take long to get here, but you never know.
Read some more and I am at the part they go to see the house... Get the feeling that they will be cheated out of their $300 and that fills me with despair. :-/
Had to leave and take a breather before I can carry on.
He worked in the meat packing plants for 2 months incognito though. I imagine he probably did some supplementary cultural research as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
That is my point, though. He obviously came from a much more privileged background and I doubt journalism (especially the kind that required going undercover) had semi-celebrity status it has these days.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
I often wonder how people get out of their little boxes when they do not have to as we ordinary mortal hardly do such things.
I have read 1/3 so far; I don't want to put the book down. Did not expect it to engage me this much. The working and living conditions fill me with rage and I find myself reading out passages to whomever happens to be sitting next to me. Funny enough, however hard I try I cannot imagine the degree of their desperation; how easy our lives are.
Haven't come across a passage that makes me want to lose my breakfast yet, though.
Haha, me either, but we'd probably feel differently if we had just eaten something from these slaughterhouses.
Finished. I am outraged and disappointed with the lack of "humanity" more than anything else.
Anyone else is reading? Don't want to ruin it by going into further detail.
Finished the book last night. Started out enjoying it very much. As it went on it just started to wear me down and by the end I was disapponited.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I'm only half done.
I've started it. About halfway done. I don't want to read any of the posts until I'm finished, but I will participate then.
I just finished. I'm glad this book was chosen, I loved it.
I'm starting tomorrows
My thoughts exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I have read about 150 pages and it is hard to put down.
EDIT
Also i am thinking that the book is still relevant. There are so many people around the world living and working under horrible conditions.
As was the author's intent, no?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Just finished, and here are my thoughts. Spoilers ahead.
I really, really enjoyed this book. I found the Sinclair's creation of the setting superb, and the descriptions of the different meat-packing plants (and the fertilizer plant, especially) were quite nauseating, though I have to say it wasn't as bad as I had thought--this book's reputation builds the 'gross-out' expectation a little to high, I think.
I liked the characters, but found them a little one-dimensional, and sometimes questioned Jurgis's motivations at times--i.e., the drive to murder his wife's boss. I get his anger, but it seemed like his thinking was a bit over-clouded. Up to this point all he thought of was supporting his family, and not once did he think what repercussions murdering his boss might have? It seemed like Sinclair just needed a way to get him into prison to further the plot. I also questioned his quick shift into being a criminal. He didn't even seem to give it a second thought, and it took one paragraph for him to turn from his honest ways to a man who had no qualms over "cracking skulls." I think this was just bad character development.
Even with these flaws (in my mind forgivable due to the strengths of the novel's other aspects--setting especially), I still would've given this book a 5/5 if it weren't for the ending. Throughout this whole novel we follow the trials of Jurgis, and what happens at the end? We got a socialist manifesto. The last three chapters seem to completely discard Jurgis so Sinclair can pound in his socialist agenda in a very heavy-handed manner. All thoughts of plot and character were thrown to the wind. I found this very disappointing. Unfortunately this is the ending to too many "protest novels." Give a good story with characters trodden on by society and then offer the glorious solution. I skimmed over the last three chapters looking for anything concerning Jurgis or the family, as it became clear that the whole book up to that point was really a piece of propaganda, truthful or not.
Now, before one accuses me of not liking the book because its politics disagrees with my own, I must say this isn't the case, because its politics do agree with mine, for the most part. I'm not a socialist today, but I would've been back then, no doubt. The reason I didn't like this book is because its political preachiness got in the way of telling the story. Sinclair's main purpose wasn't to write a good piece of literature, but to sway minds for his cause, and while that's okay (okay as in he has the right to do it), it makes for a book that sacrifices plot and character-development for a political cause, and this hurts the piece of literature in its literary sense. I found this unfortunate, especially because I think he could have conveyed his message in much subtler ways, which may have been more effective than the string of speeches we get at the end.
I was going to give this a 4, but after writing this and reflecting on the book, I think I'm going to have to bump it down to a 3. A really good book marred by the author's politics.