Customer Reviews

The Jungle (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been meaning to read this book for years as it's always been heralded as a monumental book that changed the meat packing industry and workers' rights in the early 20th century. Upon finally reading it this year (2006) I was stunned - mainly because I had read Fast Food Nation a few years ago and many things described in The Jungle had similarily been described in Fast Food Nation, which was written in 2005. The workers have simply shifted - instead of coming from Europe they are now from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

No doubt this book is eye opening - to the struggle of immigrants looking for a better place, to workers' rights (and lack thereof), to regulations of the food industry, to bribery and general disregard of the law due to greed. The ordeals and struggles Jurgis deals with are unbelieveable and when reading you'll keep thinking "Well, it can't get any worse" and yet somehow it does.

I did have a few difficulties in reading the book. First, for some reason I had (wrongly) assumed this was a non-fiction book ever since I read about it in Jr. High History class. This is a fiction novel, however it is based on Sinclair's studies of the meat packing industry and the tenements. Second, the characters are mostly of Lithuanian descent with extremely complex names. I had a bit of trouble keeping up with who everyone was in the beginning and kept getting everyone confused for the first 50 or so pages.

A general dislike from many readers is the ending. Throughout the book, Jurgis is depicted a simple country man, just wanting to earn a decent living and support his family. You do see his evolution in learning how to "work the system" to his advantage as he becomes more and more disenchanted with his new surroundings. Towards the end of the book, he finds Socialism. However, it's almost as if Sinclair forgets who his character is. While Jurgis might have found Socialism on his own and become extremely passionate, he would not have spoke in such educated and expressive words that Sinclair portrays. The end comes across as feeling "tacked on" by Sinclair himself and seem as if you are reading the end of a completely different novel. Still, this book is worth the read for the first several hundred pages anyway.

For me this book was a real eye opener in relation three areas. 1.Immigrant life in the 1800s. It is a sad commentary on the US governement, and how they allowed people to be treated as nothing more than animals. It makes one appreciate the struggles our ancestors went through to make a life for themselves and their future families. 2. The roots of Unions for the US workers. 3. The method used to process meat. Hopefully it has significantly improved since that time period...it's amazing more people didn't die from the food they ate. It has been more than a year since I read the book and still look hesitantly at the meat counter. The story is a good reason to consider becoming a vegetarian.

Any top ten list of American novels should include Upton Sinclair's masterpiece, both for its literary qualities and its historical significance. The book has unfortunately been stigmatized as the "dirty meat novel", when in fact there are only a couple of brief passages that talk about the actual processing of meat. Mostly it's about the exploitation of immigrant workers, and their struggle to survive in a country where they're treated as little more than beasts of burden. The ending of the book is often criticized, as the last chapter is basically a Socialist manifesto, but Socialism was a powerful force in America in the early 20th century, and this novel paints a vivid picture of that era in American history.

With all the editions of The Jungle out there, why buy the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition? The introduction and foreword are excellent, providing valuable historical context, an in-depth account of the book's reception by critics and the public, and insight into the long-term effects of The Jungle on the meat industry. Plus, the book is well-designed, with elegant, comfortably readable typography, and a dramatic cover design by Charles Burns that's sure to turn heads at the coffee shop.

The most common comment about The Jungle is that it was a primary factor in the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. That was all the information I had when I first read it about twenty years ago. It turned out to be a powerful novel about immigrants and their treatment at the hands of businesses, especially in the Chicago meatpacking industry. This is a book well worth reading. I recommend it for any book club because it IS going to engender a lively and perhaps controversial discussion.

I already owned the book in a second edition, but when I saw this new edition from Penguin Classics I bought it. PC editions of classics, especially these Deluxe ones with thick paper covers, rich paper, French flaps, and exquisite designs are among the most beautiful books being issued today--especially when one considers that they are paperbacks. They are worth owning if you appreciate the work and beauty of cover design. What makes this one exceptional is the back cover (which Amazon allows you to see); I recommend checking it out . . . but probably not while eating.

Eric Schlosser wrote the foreword, and it is an excellent essay. He tackles the human interest aspect of the story which is, after all, why Sinclair originally wrote it. To see that things from both a human perspective as well as a food one, have pretty much returned to, just over 100 years after the book's publication, is devastating. Equally compelling is the Introduction by Ronald Gottesman, who shares Sinclair's history as well as that of the book's coming of age and its impact. These two essays add a rich complexity to this particular edition, making it, in its own way, even better than my original edition.

Also included after the Introdiuction, are two-and-a-half pages of "Suggestions for Further Reading" that are well worth considering. It's a shame, really, that The Jungle has been pretty much forgotten as a novel because its dual components--how we treat not just immigrants but our fellow human beings, and how we sacrificing our food quality and cleanliness to cheapness--is very much a part of the twenty-first century. Do we really not want to understand our past? Or do we just prefer to repeat it?

I strongly recommend this book which offers a realistic insight into the American economic and social system from the beginning of the 20th century. Surely has the author his own political preferences and suggests leftist remedies for a rough capitalist system but I see Upton Sinclair's narrative style as fair enough for every reader and straightforward.

Although The Jungle is known primarily for its descriptions of the meat packing industry, this book is about much more. Sinclair brilliantly presents the life of a poor immigrant family searching for the American dream.

Jurgis experiences the highest levels of wealth as a politician and the lowest levels of poverty as a beggar. Although his repeated reversals of fortune are quite exaggerated, Sinclair effectively makes his point. He shows the huge gap between rich and poor and governmental corruption.

The last several chapters disappointingly lose the personal touch of Jurgi's experiences. Sinclair ends the novel with what amounts to direct socialist propaganda. It too certainly makes a convincing point (probably the main point Sinclair wanted to make), but it leaves the reader wanting a conclusion to Jurgi's character.

This is one of the classics that everyone is expected to read or know about. It adds to the background if the reader studies a little about Sinclair's biography.
As Sinclair later acknowledged, the last chapter turns into more of a tirade. The other chapters picture a time, really, not that long ago.

President Theodore Roosevelt had the meat industry investigated because of The Jungle while at the same time lecturing Sinclair against socialism. I find it unsettling the socialist lecturer in The Jungle and Henry George, (Progress & Poverty) promise almost the same results. I really hated the last chapter's talk of communal living which are called economies of cooperation in the book.
Let me not throw out the baby with the bath water. The Jungle is an excellent example of the stockyards in Chicago in that era. Immigrants and animals were living an endless nightmare of poverty, filth, & pain. In researching an article about our grandfather in Chicago newspaper archives on micro fiche frequently I found articles where all who ate in the same restaurant or from the same food market simply dropped dead in the same day or slowly & painfully over a couple days from food poisoning.
I did like the last chapter (the socialist push) where the speaker speaks of the natural diet which includes eating less meat. Much of our land & water & wildlife is spoiled from over breeding & over grazing of farm animals. There is no need to eat animal protein at every meal. It's not healthy not to eat fruits & vegetables & grains.
This book also might have been a major factor not only in food processing reform but also in the formation of unions. Denigrate unions all you want but because of unions workers have an advocate.
I gave The Jungle 4 stars instead of five stars because Upton Sinclair did not argue for Henry George, the author of Progress and Poverty. If you read it you will first want to read Bob Drake's edition. It's a difference of six hundred pages of very old english language verses two hundred pages of now speak.Progress and Poverty - edited and abridged for modern readers by Bob Drake

Everyone has heard of this 1906 book, but few have read it all. It was not a muck-raking investigation into the meat processing industry, but a novel about an immigrant family that came to a big city (Chicago) and suffered from all possible problems (like a worst case scenario). Poverty, drugs, crime, and prostitution are not new problems.

A few pages in the book describe the workings of a meat processing plant. All too true, as the later investigations proved. The character (Jurgis) who worked there was later hospitalized, and found out where the market was for sub-standard goods: institutions where the consumers have no choice. There had been scandals about "embalmed beef" during the Spanish-American War.

The book is still as entertaining and educational today as it was when it was first published. Are things different today? Just read your newspapers. The last chapters are sometimes censored, they have become obsolete with the passage of time, and are a warning against adopting the latest fashions or trends that haven't been tested by time.

I first read this book about 8 years ago in a High School history class. Since then I have read it twice and I did a college thesis on it; it is one of my favorite books. The first time I read the hardcover book; the next two times I listened to the unabridged audiobook and enjoyed it so much better.