Customer Reviews

The Jungle (A Signet Classic)

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

 

 

Cicero once wrote, 'It is an outrageous abuse both of time and literature for a man to commit his thoughts to writing without having the ability either to arrange them or manifest them, or attract readers by some charm of style."

This book is a naturalistic novel with poor prose. Melodramatic and sensationalistic. It is functionally aligned to what was characterized as 'dime-novels' during the era in which it was written. The prose is so heinous it made me think the writer Mr. Sinclair must have been mentally exiguous. I had difficulty affirming in my own mind as I read this book that it was actually written by an adult, and not a fourteen-year-old child; notwithstanding a supposed professional novelist at that. Charles Dickens worked in a garment factory when he was a teenager as well as had a far less well-off beginning to life than that of Mr. Sinclair, yet Mr. Dickens could express with the most refined art and effort such an ease of pen dazzling the reader in every line. Dickens had indubitably an eye for detail and perfection that Sinclair's intellectual apathy could never aspire to grasp.

For a more eminent literary personification of the naturalistic novel genre, I would suggest reading Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. The naturalistic novel was always a phantasm of reality, but there were well-written ones and poorly written ones; this one by Upton Sinclair is a literary peril to say the least.

This book is exceptional only its ridiculousness. The characters are passive, dull, cliché, and often utterly puerile in their own conceptualization of their circumstances (this reflects upon the limited thought process of the writer).

In respect to the vulgarity discussed by Sinclair regarding the food industry of this era it should be noted the industry had already been exposed by various NON-fiction writers of the period (preceding Sinclair), and much (the emphasis being much, not all) of the industry had consequently been reformed apropos to the processing of food by the time this book was published. Essentially the government mandated regulatory reforms that were instituted the following year as a result of the popularity of this book were unnecessary, most significantly postulated on aberrational phenomena, and were superficial in remonstrance (oh but they made the public feel good inside). Conversely had Sinclair decided to be objective in his critique of the meatpacking industry in contrast to producing 'muckracking' so-called journalism derived out of his own subjective views in support of socialist ideology he would have discovered the previously mentioned actuality, but since this is a work of fiction he could write anything he wished, and he did. Why Sinclair went down the road of sensationalism in this novel may be attributable to the failures of his first four books. However, because he decided to go down that road he cannot be taken seriously as a scholar in any regard.

It should be noted that Sinclair was not merely a metaphorical socialist, he was a literal one (he was an unsuccessful Socialist Party candidate in the U.S.). In historical context Sinclair's political persuasion was during an era when the progressive political faction was gaining in popularity in America, so as a socialist ideologue he [Sinclair] was even further to the left politically than the progressives (he could be paralleled with a Michael Moore type in the present-era).

This book is a literary work of fiction, and should not be taken earnestly as a non-fictional scholarly critique. With that noted it also falls short in regard to literary style, and because the characters are passively portrayed by Sinclair in contrast to being actively portrayed it is difficult for the reader to form any authentic connection with them (they exist more as abstractions).

A forward thinking high-school teacher of mine once suggested this book to the precocious group of teenagers in her Humanities class. "It will make your stomach turn, but it may convince you that we should not take for granted the laws which govern the work we do and the food we eat." Although lured at that young age by the prospect of gratuitously sickening stories and a dash of socio-political intrigue, I somehow opted for Carl Segan's book called _Broca's Brain_ yet cannot remember a word of it. Perhaps I should have stuck with the Jungle.

After all, filth pays, but in a good way in this case. Sinclaire's grotesque depictions of immigrant labor life in the early 20th century helped change and improve the American legal and social landscape. Doing this while crafting a compelling narrative imbued with artful turns of phrase is no small feat. _The Jungle_ is not only a work of social advocacy but of colorful and compelling prose. It is well worth the read.

It is the early 1900s, and the extended Rudkus family - newlyweds Jurgis and Ona as protagonists - have just arrived in the United States, bound for Chicago. After a grueling journey, they find themselves starting wide-eyed down Dearborn Street, "unable to realize that they had arrived, and why, when they said 'Chicago,' people no longer pointed in some direction but instead looked perplexed, or laughed . . . " With a seemingly unquenchable optimism, Rudkus and his family bravely take on the challenges of finding employment and housing but find it next to impossible to do so without bartering their dignity.

Their new world is the Chicago stockyards, where animals are objects, humans are commodities, industry is god-like, and their Lithuanian culture is a fading tie to sanity. It is the time of Jurgis and Ona's wedding feast, the veselija, and Sinclair's writing is beautiful here: "Tamoszius Kuzleika is his name, and he has taught himself to play the violin by practicing all night, after working all day on the 'killing beds'. He is in his shirtsleeves, with a vest figured with faded gold horseshoes, and a pink-striped shirt, suggestive of peppermint candy. A pair of military trousers, light blue with a yellow stripe, serve to give that suggestion of authority proper to the leader of a band. He is only about five feet high, but even so these trousers are about eight inches short of the ground. You wonder where he could have gotten them - or rather you would wonder, if the excitement of being in his presence left you time to think of such things." Although tinged with melancholy, these early days carry a foreshadowing of hope. "It is very imprudent, it is tragic - but, ah, it is so beautiful! Bit by bit these poor people have given up everything else; but to this they cling with all the power of their souls - they cannot give up the veselija! To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat - and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going."

However, harsh realities quickly overtake marital bliss. Winters prove brutal. The damp cold permeates the Rudkus' "new" home, revealing it to be nothing more than an old, repainted collection of clapboard. Cold blasts freeze young fingers, and blinding snow disorients both men and boys on their ways to work and school. The simplest human ethic is next to impossible to find. And for all that is written about how Packingtown workers are treated, the implications for the broader community are just as horrific. Local businesses sell ice to neighborhood residents, failing to mention that they have chipped it from frozen puddles - once stagnant the entire summer, filled with mud, oozing with vermin and covered in grime. At the packing plants, "There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was moldy and white - it would be dosed with borax and glycerin, and dumped into the hoppers and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drop over it, and thousands of rats would race about upon it."

Although once impressed with their efficiency, Jurgis finds the killing beds and packing plants to be vicious, stench-filled pits where cattle meet unblinking, mechanized deaths. Men are treated as expendable, meant to be worn out through brutish labor and replaced. Some are worked to exhaustion; some lose life and limb to vats of chemicals, boning knives, and grinding gears. A simple injury or tardiness was cause for termination, and a simple wisecrack to a supervisor could get one blacklisted, ensuring that one could never again work in this inferno called Packingtown.

At one point Jurgis finds some hope of liberation through labor unions where he encouters "brothers in affliction, and allies". Having left the church, which "did not touch him", he finds a new religion in the union, "one that did touch him, that took hold of every fiber of him, and with all the zeal and fury of a convert he went out as a missionary." This too fails him, however, and Jurgis increasingly takes matters into his own hands.

Despite his natural brawn and determination, Jurgis ultimately falls prey to the persistent brutality of the system. Members of his family members perish; others turn to crude means of survival. Imprisoned just prior to Christmas for a violent outburst of rage, Jurgis comes to the end of himself as church bells ring in the holiday, seemingly mocking his absence from his family: "These midnight hours were fateful ones to Jurgis; in them was the beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry and his unbelief." This is the turning point where Jurgis' own health withers; his optimism fades; and his life becomes filled with alcohol; crime; vagrancy; and prolonged absence from the home.

One desolate evening, he seeks shelter in a meeting hall, only to have his hope rekindled again. This time it is the Socialists, who have organized themselves against the very capitalist-industrialists who had abused and disfigured Jurgis' once promising youth. It is here that we leave Jurgis, an enthusiastic convert of Socialism's tempting promises. The irony, however, is that the unwritten chapter on Jurgis' life as a socialist is also likely to have failed him. In reality, the very democracy under which his oppressors thrived ultimately underwent a significant measure of reform, in no small part due to Jurgis' fictitious story and Sinclaire's dedication to exposing reality through literature.

What I did not expect was to find myself reading this book in July 2008 (in Chicago, no less) while working with a number of immigrants and refugees not unlike Jurgis. Their challenges were similar, their hope similarly unquenchable, and their bewilderment real. In this case, however, the magnitude of their challenge was markedly reduced, and it was the church to whom these people had turned for assistance. It was my distinct pleasure to see the church not only acting upon its commitment to "welcome the stranger" but to see foreign-born Americans doing the same for those who had newly arrived in the "Land of the Free."

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.