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The Jungle
Aug. 29th, 2013 07:22 pmUpton Sinclair's The Jungle is remembered more for its portrayal of Chicago meatpacking plants and the food safety reforms it sparked, so it was surprising to read the whole volume and find out that it was also about the gradual decay of a Lithuanian family, immigrants to the US, and ends with a sweeping socialist manifesto. Heavy stuff for 1906!
Jurgis Rudkis, his father, and the extended family of his bride to be, Ona, immigrate to the United States and eventually land in Chicago. America is the land of the free, they have been led to believe, and unfortunately discover all the trips and traps of a factory system and the industry that grows around it. Sinclair writes with a vividness, passion and virtue that one might not expect for the time when it was written. He has the eye of a journalist, but the soul of a novelist - he throws every possible thing at the fictional family. Truly, it makes Game of Thrones look like a children's book. The family members are subject to the whims of capitalism and a system that is stacked against them. One of the most tense parts for me was when the family is taken by a "new house" scheme. They give every last penny to buy a house, stress themselves out over the purchase of it, only to be evicted from it two years later when they are unable to keep up with the mortgage because Jurgis has been thrown in jail. When he gets out of jail, he finds that the house has been fixed up, painted and sold as "new" to an Irish family. Poverty is a constant ghost that clings to them. Surely new Canadians suffer from the same anxieties over one hundred years later.
It's rather sad that the public latched onto the food production process instead of being concerned for the poor immigrant who might have been ground up into their canned meat or lard as part of the process. Unfortunately public opinion was not very high of Eastern European people at the time, and I can't imagine that the socialist manifesto, which takes up the last five or so chapters, had the effect that Sinclair hoped for. Despite being a proper narrative, the book has no satisfactory ending - Jurgis finds socialism like one might find religion.
On an interesting note, the author of an old time radio show, Broadway Is My Beat, borrowed Sinclair's cadence for tales about the downtrodden in New York.
Jurgis Rudkis, his father, and the extended family of his bride to be, Ona, immigrate to the United States and eventually land in Chicago. America is the land of the free, they have been led to believe, and unfortunately discover all the trips and traps of a factory system and the industry that grows around it. Sinclair writes with a vividness, passion and virtue that one might not expect for the time when it was written. He has the eye of a journalist, but the soul of a novelist - he throws every possible thing at the fictional family. Truly, it makes Game of Thrones look like a children's book. The family members are subject to the whims of capitalism and a system that is stacked against them. One of the most tense parts for me was when the family is taken by a "new house" scheme. They give every last penny to buy a house, stress themselves out over the purchase of it, only to be evicted from it two years later when they are unable to keep up with the mortgage because Jurgis has been thrown in jail. When he gets out of jail, he finds that the house has been fixed up, painted and sold as "new" to an Irish family. Poverty is a constant ghost that clings to them. Surely new Canadians suffer from the same anxieties over one hundred years later.
It's rather sad that the public latched onto the food production process instead of being concerned for the poor immigrant who might have been ground up into their canned meat or lard as part of the process. Unfortunately public opinion was not very high of Eastern European people at the time, and I can't imagine that the socialist manifesto, which takes up the last five or so chapters, had the effect that Sinclair hoped for. Despite being a proper narrative, the book has no satisfactory ending - Jurgis finds socialism like one might find religion.
On an interesting note, the author of an old time radio show, Broadway Is My Beat, borrowed Sinclair's cadence for tales about the downtrodden in New York.
