Customer Reviews

Oil! a Novel

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Unlike Sinclair's best-known novel, "The Jungle," with its bleak story and gloomy characters, "Oil!" is a fast-paced, lively and colorful story. Although Sinclair uses it to preach his political views, it is nevertheless a good piece of literature and an interesting historical testimony to the era in which it was written. Another striking thing is how Sinclair's descriptions of corporate manipulations tend to mirror very recent events. Interesting also is that Sinclair uses one of the oldest cliches in American literature, the coming-of-age story, as the vehicle for this epic; at the same time, there are indications that Sinclair seems to mock this manner of story-telling - from the main character's rather silly nick-name, "Bunny" to his perennial inability to make up his mind about where he wants to go with his life, i.e. he never really 'comes of age.' Other reviewers have noted Sinclair's apparently naive promotion of socialism/communism/the Bolsheviks, which is a valid criticism, although to me it seemed more a case of the author throwing out ideas to provoke readers into thinking rather than an attempt to persuade them. In this sense, his use of the family of a wealthy California oil baron as the main protagonists is quite telling: although Sinclair does take the opportunity to highlight the hypocrisy and greed of the moneyed classes, he also makes a genuine attempt to portray them as real people rather than just grotesque caricatures. I also noticed that many of his characterizations of the working class/poor are often less than flattering. Regardless, this is a really entertaining novel, probably Sinclair's best.

When Warren G. Harding died suddenly in California in 1923, he was one of the most beloved President's ever. It wasn't long, however, before that opinion changed, so that today he is considered among the worst. The revelation after his death of the Teapot Dome scandal that occurred during his administration was paramount in destroying his reputation. And it involved oil (the naval oil reserves in Wyoming were being sold off by corrupt politicians close to Harding). Sinclair based this novel on Teapot Dome. It basically shows how a decent man and his son Bunny Ross are up against insurmountable odds in the oil business, what with corruption all around. Sinclair's solution was dramatic: for him socialism was the answer; capitalism was too corrupt. A big, brawling novel, not particularly memorable for its style; but its muscular approach and willingness to tackle important issues make it worth reading.

Anyone who wants a vivid, first-hand account of Southern California life in the 1920's will love this novel. It captures the go-go energy of the times, peppered with jazz-era slang, which perhaps was so fresh at the time this novel was written that Sinclair chose to put these terms in quotations. (Modern readers will be surprised that most of this slang is in common use today). Of course, one can't ignore the larger political, social and cultural themes that explode upon these pages. The oil boom that grips everyone in Southern California is just the tip of the iceberg. The weirder aspect is how little has changed in the past 75 years, We are still grappling with the same issues of political corruption, wage inequality, excesses of capitalism, cult of celebrity, and lest we forget, the youth and car culture. Even more disturbing are the passing references to American oil interests in the middle east. There's some laugh out loud passages; one of the most memorable concerns an Oklahoma oil man who lays on the down-home drawl to intimadate European diplomats. Hmmmm, now that sounds familiar....

I came to "Oil!" for two reasons. One, I had recently read "The Jungle," and became enamored with Sinclair's wit and prose; two, I had watched "There Will Be Blood," and found it such a thought-provoking film that I had better read the book that inspired it. (This tactic worked recently for me, with "Blood's" ideological counterpart "No Country Old Men", which got me hooked on the writing of Cormac McCarthy.)

I hesitate to throw out a disclaimer, but I must assume that many potential readers will come to this book through the movie, so I have to say it: The book is nothing like the film (which directer Paul Thomas Anderson has stated); the movie gets its start from the first few pages of "Oil!"; which means, since there's over 500 pages left, that there's quite a bit of story yet to tell.

I say this simply as a disclaimer. By all means, buy the book and read it. Upton Sinclair was known for his Socialist sympathies ("Oil!", like "The Jungle," reads like a Socialist manifesto), but what interests me about his writing is how his prose is still poetic and witty. Yes, there are some political points that, now having experienced WWII and the Cold War, seem dated; but in 1927, Sinclair was a borderline-revolutionary, and his Socialist sympathies put him in danger. He managed to convey that fear to "Oil!", which details an oil tycoon's son, as he slips into the Socialist world and ends up fighting the industry that made his dad a success. I wouldn't say "Oil!" is as cutting-edge as "The Jungle" was, but it certainly is a social commentary/satire that cuts straight to the bone of American capitalism. Written eighty years ago, it still holds power today; if that isn't a sign of great literature, then I just don't know what is.

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE THE OIL BUSINESS, LIKE NO BUSINESS YOU'LL KNOW.

A bit different from the movie, "Oil" is a story written from the third person narrative of Bunny Arnold Ross Jr, son of oil tycoon, Arnold Ross. The story follows Arnold Ross from scroungy wildcatter to oil tycoon.

"Oil" was written at the turn of the century by "muckraker" Upton Sinclair. I've read a lot of Sinclair novels and have come to own many of his first editions, but his appeal to me was not immediate. The Jungle, for example, was written about the Chicago meatpacking industry. It's publication-first as a special edition for members of the Communist Party- provoked the government to pass the meat inspecting standards that we now have-"USDA Inspected". Sinclair novels often lack denouement and the plots are thinly disguised vehicles for presenting a litany of horrors perpetrated against the poor by greedy capitalists. The list of horrors can be shocking-workers lost limbs in vats of meat and production was not stopped to recover the limb or help the dying man-but even lists of horrors need to be presented with strong plots.

What is present in "Oil" the novel that is not present in "There Will Be Blood" is that Bunny argues fervently with his father on behalf of his father's oil workers. In the movie, we see Daniel Day Lewis stopping work for a day when an oil worker is crushed at the bottom of a well. In a Sinclair novel, the worker would have been left at the bottom of the well as long as he wasn't clogging flow. Or you see Daniel Day Lewis tenderly adopt the orphaned child of a friend. In a Sinclair novel, an orphaned child that needed feeding and couldn't work would have been left to die in the desert. Sinclair presented the difference between capitalists and socialists starkly. Capitalists were always and completely without humanity.

The novel actually explains a lot of holes in the movie. The parting of Arnold and his son when Arnold is grown didn't make a lot of sense to me in the film. Arnold writes off his adopted son indifferently and there isn't anything in the movie which predicates that kind of reaction. We see Arnold grooming his son, sending him to a special school after his eyes are burned, yearning for him when he is gone. Writing him off when he's 20 seems to make no sense at all. But in the book Bunny and Arnold have spent a lifetime arguing the socialist agenda and Arnold feels that a man with Bunny's convictions can't be his son and lets him go. What is also missing in the film but explained in the book is the sudden and unexplained disappearance of Arnold's best friend. I guess the film didn't want to risk appearing socialist but I'm not sure the script makes sense without the presence of socialist ideals in it.

No socialist portrayal of the world would be complete without running down the opiate of the masses, religion. Sinclair's novel depicts religion as hoodwinking the oppressed rather than helping them. Arnold's struggle in the movie isn't just against the socialists who have claimed his son, but against religion which is threatening to claim existence.

Sinclair novels are historically important if not always the greatest page turning reads. In a day and age when the media is manipulated by corporate sponsors and free speech is suppressed by the government, it's interesting to read novels from 70 years ago that changed the course of American life. Novels like these will make you yearn for honest publishers who were willing to take a chance on something that might change the world. But be prepared to shift your expectations when you go from modern literature to a Sinclair novel. Read it from the point of view of someone that lived a hundred years ago and you'll appreciate it. If you compare it to your page turning novels of today, you'll be disappointed.

"Oil!" can barely be said to be the basis of the movie "There Will be Blood." The movie is a new millennium monologue representation of a dialogue showing the struggle of two classes dramatized in the book. In "Oil!" the oil man's son is the vehicle for the struggle of ideas between his capitalist father and his worker-oriented union organizer friend, Paul. In a perfect caricature of present-day society, the movie entirely omits the working-class side of the debate which in the book is viewed through the eyes of the oil man's son. In a world where huge media corporations now dominate the worldwide flow of ideas, a world from which ideas favorable to the working person are entirely absent, the movie "There Will be Blood" takes a book which is about a dialogue between two classes and turns it into a monologue. In other words, the movie ripped out the guts of the book.
The really interesting questions in the book were entirely omitted such as:
In the book the father struggling against the huge oil companies---reflecting the fight of the medium and small business person to survive against huge corporate interests.
Most importantly, the son being friends with Paul, the radical labor organizer. This friendship and the pull of Paul's ideas places the "young oil prince" in a severe conflict with the circumstances of his birth, and that is the basic conflict of the book--entirely missing not only from the movie but from "mainstream" media. If you've seen the movie, the book becomes particularly interesting so you can see what is being withheld from you.
If you do decide to read the book, the prose is in an older historical style, not the style that flows from computers, so be ready to adjust to a different style. Also, there are some long paragraphs about how wooden oil derricks are constructed, and I recommend that you skip these unless you have some tremendous interest in wooden oil derricks of the past.

I am sure that many people have compared _Oil_ with "There Will Be Blood," the film loosely based on the novel. Each is excellent in its own way. _Oil_ is a well written, stirring novel, with richly developed and complex characters. The film's screen writer chooses to tell how greed thoroughly warps and corrupts a self-made oil barren. The oil man in the book, J. Arnold Ross, Sr., is a far more complicated man. Although a "greedy capitalist" as is the entire capitalist system according to the author, Upton Sinclair, Ross, Sr. is often a compassionate man. He agrees to post bail for friends of his son's imprisoned for holding "communist inspired meetings" calling for abolishing the enslavement and exploitation of working men by the capitalist system. Ross Sr. sympathizes with some of the wage demands of his striking workers, but is stymied in his support of them for fear of ostracism from a corporate federation to which he belongs.

Ross, Jr., nicknamed Bunny in the novel, is a sensitive, intelligent, and well educated young man. While Bunny loves and admires his father and is the heir to Ross Sr.'s millions, Bunny works against what his father believes, and heartily sympathizes with the ideals of his "Bolshevik" friends. Bunny's sister, Bertie, firmly against and embarrassed by her brother's socialist activities, believes that his behavior is preventing her being invited to join the monied class to which she feels entitled.

Bunny, from childhood on, becomes close friends with Paul Watkins, one of the sons of the family from whom Ross Sr. cheaply bought the land from which his oil wells were drilled. Paul, a true believer in the radical movement, is one of the most important influences in Bunny's life. Bunny becomes involved with Vee, a movie starlet, who, like his sister, is also against Bunny's socialist leanings. Vernon Roscoe, Ross Sr's partner and perhaps the most corrupt character in the book, believes in industry working closely with and even bribing government officials, which Vernon believes is for the benefit of all.

The last section of the novel, where Bunny becomes particularly close with Rachel Menzies, a Jewish girl who shares much of Bunny's beliefs, is fast paced and engrossing, as is much of the book. One of the only negative aspects of the book is the author's and some of its characters' naive belief that Soviet Russia held promise as a model for a worker's state. This can be forgiven because the book ends in the 1920's before many of the Soviet Union's failings, particularly under Stalin, were uncovered. Although the novel ends tragically, there is some promise held out for a better and fairer world for the members of the working class.

Sinclair's writing style is gregarious, repetitive. He hits you on the head with the 'poor working class stiff' schtick, but if you can get past it, what he's describing is actually quite interesting. Sinclair's book is a worthwhile read not only for its striking similarities to our own times, which many people have already stated. But his depictions of the early 20th century in southern California, the social mores, the living conditions, the locations -- are all his images, as he experienced them, or imagined them. They may not have been 'real' but they are certainly what we no longer experience. Los Angeles and Long Beach with derricks, dirt road travelling, working class lives, oak forests in places no longer existant, oil derrick explosions. It was incredibly interesting to read Sinclair's version of how derricks were built, maintained, and occasionally destroyed. Highly recommended for California early 20th century history buffs.

"Oil" may be the title of Upton Sinclair's expansive work of historical fiction first published in 1927, but the meat of the novel is about the incipient titanic struggle between Communism and Capitalism dating to the closing days of World War I. In Sinclair's view (one which has largely been censored from popular views of American history), Russian Bolsheviks quickly became the nemesis of American and European Capitalism. Efforts at "containment" started immediately after the war with the maintenance of a large American garrison in Vladivostok to protect the railway and munitions assets of J.P. Morgan that were securing a loan to the British government. According to Sinclair, the U.S. government also financed and encouraged multiple mercenary armies (most notably in Poland) along the Russian borders in an effort to neutralize the Communist takeover. This was all done at the behest of "big business" interests in the U.S. who expected that our armed forces would protect them and their assets anywhere in the world. This is one of the main threads that Sinclair continues to develop for the remainder of the novel. The author is remarkable in his ability delineate the opposing viewpoints in this monumental battle which has affected so many of the events of the past 70 years. Here's a prescient quote from 1927. "You really think there'll be another war, Paul?" "Paul answered that armaments produce wars automatically; the capitalists who make the armaments have to see that they are used, in order to get to make more. Bunny said that the idea of another war seemed too horrible to think about; and Paul replied, "So you don't think about it, and that makes it easy for the business men to get it ready" In view of our current involvement in the Middle East, one has to wonder when if ever we will be able to get onto a different path forward.

The film "There will be blood" is a shameless travesty of the book, which analyses the corruption in the oil industry and the intimidation of the unions. Anyone who admires the works of Ayn Rand should get a dose of this by way of a cure. Even the well-intentioned main characters get sucked into the maelstrom of big business. Unfortunately after 300 pages it becomes a bit boring, as the author tries to put in too much, but by then 99% of the readers will have learned a valuable lesson.