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Two main takeaways here: This is a fabulous book, and it is not what you think it is.
I'd heard of The Jungle plenty. Hell, I think it was covered in my AP US history class in high school. About unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry, right? Some guy falls in a vat of hot grease, only his skeleton is found but they still ship out the batch of lard for human consumption, right? That stuff is all in there, sure, but it's completely incidental. The Jungle is about the immigrant experience, socialism and class consciousness.
The story follows Jurgis Rudkus as he immigrates from Lithuania, finds a job in the meatpacking industry, gets married, and generally tries to get by. The abysmal working conditions and exploitative systems they live in prevent them from ever having more than a tenuous existence, however. Disease and accidents slowly winnow down the family while all he can do is try to work harder, always harder, but never enough. It is a classic depiction of capital only paying the bare replacement value for the labor it is consuming, not to get all Marxist about it. Broken by these defeats, Jurgis skips town, rides the rails, and through some halfway lucky breaks ends up a smooth, hard-living criminal working for the political bosses of Chicago. It is only after he falls out of this position as well that his eyes open to the promise of socialism, and the wave that is poised to sweep the country clean.
So, yeah, that is not what I was expecting. I see this confusion goes way back. Upton Sinclair himself said, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." That was a fun surprise, but the real treat was the writing style. For once, listening at 2x speed was a positive boon, as every single sentence should be heard as spoken by a fast-talking reporter holding a notebook with a PRESS tag in his fedora. The language is smooth, clever, and gut-wrenching. It would make an excellent pairing with Grapes of Wrath.
I'd heard of The Jungle plenty. Hell, I think it was covered in my AP US history class in high school. About unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry, right? Some guy falls in a vat of hot grease, only his skeleton is found but they still ship out the batch of lard for human consumption, right? That stuff is all in there, sure, but it's completely incidental. The Jungle is about the immigrant experience, socialism and class consciousness.
The story follows Jurgis Rudkus as he immigrates from Lithuania, finds a job in the meatpacking industry, gets married, and generally tries to get by. The abysmal working conditions and exploitative systems they live in prevent them from ever having more than a tenuous existence, however. Disease and accidents slowly winnow down the family while all he can do is try to work harder, always harder, but never enough. It is a classic depiction of capital only paying the bare replacement value for the labor it is consuming, not to get all Marxist about it. Broken by these defeats, Jurgis skips town, rides the rails, and through some halfway lucky breaks ends up a smooth, hard-living criminal working for the political bosses of Chicago. It is only after he falls out of this position as well that his eyes open to the promise of socialism, and the wave that is poised to sweep the country clean.
So, yeah, that is not what I was expecting. I see this confusion goes way back. Upton Sinclair himself said, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." That was a fun surprise, but the real treat was the writing style. For once, listening at 2x speed was a positive boon, as every single sentence should be heard as spoken by a fast-talking reporter holding a notebook with a PRESS tag in his fedora. The language is smooth, clever, and gut-wrenching. It would make an excellent pairing with Grapes of Wrath.