1001 Group Read - November, 2012: The Jungle

Another excellent selection made by our team of expert 1001 Group Read participants. To become an expert participant in the 1001 Group Read, all you have to do is vote.

I read this novel many years ago as a teenager, and I was impressed. "The Jungle" has all of the trappings of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath", focusing, however, on the plight of immigrant workers expsoed to the harshness of the Chicago stock yard.

I look forward to your comments and will be joining in as opportunity allows.

BTW, I still have my copy of "The Jungle" that I read in 1962 as a highschool sophomore.

I'll be trying to join in again :) Haven't been around much for a while, I've been very busy, but I'll try to free up some time for this one...

Ooh - I read this last year so won't be joining but it is really really good. Have fun!

Sounds interesting... might just join in on this one!

Im all in. Was only able to read the first chapter but looking forward in the rest. LETS GO!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't realize we were reading this. I'll see if I can find my copy.

one of the very few books I've ever given my top rating of "superb" to.

"There is one kind of prison where a man is behind bars and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind bars, and the man is outside"

My review at

http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=2852

is a bit spoiler-y.

Looking forward to hearing all your thoughts... especially at election time!

My copy has just arrived, will be back to post soon.

I am about 3/4 of the way through and my God my heart goes out to these people. These people come to America thinking its a land rich with milk and honey and find the complete opposite. Since not very many people are commenting yet I dont want to post any spoilers. But the best way to describe Jurgis is a teenager that is so young that they think that life cant be that hard I GOT THIS!!!!!!! I got this tiger by the tail!!!! But by the time they hit mid twenties and 30's well Mom and Dad knew alittle something after all. But the sad part with Jurgis all this happens within 3 years. Im looking forward to finishing the book within a couple of days.

And with what I read about the meat packing stuff that goes on Im not so sure that big fat greasy hamburger looks so good any more.

Made a start on this yesterday. Coincidentally I am also reading Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, published in the same year (1905). The contrast between the lives of the rich and poor in America at the turn of the century could hardly be more stark (even if the authors presumably exaggerate to make their point).

#9, that is a great description. I'm only 50 pages in but I completely feel what you mean. I'm watching these poor immigrants make all the wrong moves and my heart is already bleeding for them.

@ puckers: not sure they had to exaggerate too much actually. It's worth reading some background into why Lewis wrote this book in the first place. From the intro to the page on Wikipedia: " It was based on undercover work done in 1904: Sinclair spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards"

but rather than the public repenting on funding an industry that would treat people this way, there was outcry that they might be eating meat not fit for human consumption. That must have been a bitter pill for Lewis to swallow after the lengths he had to go to get it published. As Wikipedia concludes, "he famously complained about the public's misunderstanding of the point of his book in Cosmopolitan Magazine in October 1906 by stating, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.""

>12 by arukiyomi, Just a little confused, you're clearly talking about The Jungle, but you keep referring to Upton Sinclair as "Lewis"?

oh yeah... I do that cos I've always confused Sinclair Lewis with his contemporary Upton Sinclair! I did of course mean Sinclair not Lewis. Thanks for catching that

hahaha, that was an amusing "typo" situation! Because you did say Sinclair in there at least once also; I was just so perplexed by what was going on! ;P

This book reminds me of Uncle Tom's Cabin in that it's clearly written as a piece of political persuasion; but I find that Sinclair is too much of a journalist and not really enough of a sentimentalist in the way Stowe was. I feel for his characters but not with them; they don't seem plausibly three-dimensional or complexly motivated. I'm about to start listening to this on CD and maybe I will warm to it in that medium.
Added: Part of the problem is actually that Socialism is just not as powerful a framework as Christianity for telling a socially moral tale. Sinclair is trying to use current social conditions to make a case for Socialism; Stowe was using Christianity to make a case against current social conditions.

I recently downloaded this to my Kindle App on my phone (still don't have a "proper" one!) and am enjoying it very much so far.

I tend to read my kindle books slower but will hopefully get through it before November is out!

Finished. One of those heart-breaking stories that leaves you saddened, but also angry at the injustices visited on this family. The novel only suffered in the closing chapters with lectures on socialism. Nevertheless these were interesting to read in a book that predates the Russian Revolution. 4/5

I so agree with you puckers I felt like I was in a lecture instead of an ending of a really great book.

The ending was a little weak, but I think that it doesn't take away the core messages of the book (although I did cringe at the Socialist heroes).

The ins and outs of the meat packing industry were certainly an eye opener! I recently read Ragtime, and saw a lot of the poor family in the family portrayed here. So many topics brought up - the plight of the immigrant with each wave pushed out by next, the flouting of child labour laws, vote buying, prostitution - it's all here.

I found the book unrelenting in its depiction of the time, sadly realistic.

I'm over half way through. THe switch to audiobook was a good move for me: I often find that books that were intended to be read serially, from Don Quixote to Dickens, work well that way. With this one, as with them, audio forces you to slow down to the pace it was meant to be read and you have to deal with all the details. The details here are better than I had realized.
It's interesting to me that the result of this book, not intended by the author, was the formation of the FDA. The descriptions of food production here are to me the weakest part of the story. The basic narrative about the lives of poor immigrants and how they are cruelly taken advantage of by richer bosses is far more powerful, as it was meant to be. Partly that's because I can believe and sympathize with everything that happens to Jurgis and his family. I feel, alas, as if a lot of it could still happen today to undocumented immigrants. It's very upsetting.

and it was one of Sinclair's bitter regrets that the FDA was and still is paid for not by the companies whose reckless pursuit of profit required it but by the taxpayer victims of their greed.

I'm about half way through this now and I've got to admit I am agreeing with the general sentiment of this thread. There are times that I have to remind myself that I'm reading a story, and not a piece of journalistic writing.

I agree with annamorphic in that I'm not surprised that Sinclair "aimed for the heart but hit the stomach" since the long passages describing the food production can't help but take focus away from the more captivating human story.

That's not to say I'm not enjoying this book immensely, I've just had to adjust my expectations away from a story and characters with any great depth.

Given the recent US election (and equally important UK local police commissioner elections...ahem...18% turnout...ahem) the "selling votes" angle is interesting. Do we think this kind of thing still goes on?

I've been neglecting the 1001 books (and LT) during the last months due to RL stuff, but I just downloaded this book and I'll try and get through it in November. It is a book I normally wouldn't have read anytime soon and I am all unprepared.

I've just finished this and absolutely loved it! I need to partially retract my comment about the journalistic nature of the book from above as this balance definitely shifted as the book went on. I felt that really this was just a very long exposition.

Rather than re-hash my ramblings too much I'll just copy what I posted on my individual thread about this book below!

Can't wait for the next group read!

From my progress thread:

I read this purely because of the November group read, and would not normally have picked it up. All I can say is, Hurray for LibraryThing group read! I mentioned on the group read thread that I was finding the book to have more of a journalistic feel such that the author seemed to be giving more weight to the physical descriptions of the environment at the expense of developing the plot and characters. However, I really should take that back. As the book moved on this focus very much shifted to the individual plight of jurgis and his fascinating journey.

Many people have commented on the unnecessary socialist lecturing at the end of the book, but while it was perhaps a little too long, I really enjoyed the balance that this gave the book. A long exposition followed by a focused character narrative finished off with some interesting political musings. It was like 3 books in one!

Moreover I didn't see the end of the book as a piece of political persuasion (although I'm sure that's how it was intended,) more as an insight into how the draw of socialism would be so appealing to so many people at this time.

I feel like I could ramble on for ever about this book, but I'll just finish by saying that what I particularly loved about this book was the development of Jurgis' character and the various contradictions that arose in his actions and thoughts. Initially it was very easy to empathise with him, but as the book moved on I felt that Sinclair was challenging me to continue to root for him despite his rapidly disappearing morals and values. The raid on the striking workers and the bar was a particularly acute example of this.

Anyway, all in all this was an really excellent read!

>25 by JonnySaunders, I'm really glad to hear you say that! I was feeling a bit bothered with the way everyone seemed to be viewing this book, and how incredibly far that was from my own views when I read it (in 2010). Thrilled that your perception has shifted so much! :)

Thanks Polymathic. I think this is the danger of reading a "review" before, or during reading a book. You can't help but focus on whatever is being highlighted by the review. So I think I was, to some extent, influenced by this thread. I suppose it's testament to the writing that my perception was shifted so dramatically.

I was also influenced by the fact that this was my "kindle" book, which means I have it on my phone and can dip in and out of it whenever I get an idle moment. I tend to read books much slower like this, so the exposition may have seemed longer than it actually was. I was given a real life kindle for my birthday recently and so my reading pace for the second half of the book picked up greatly, this probably helped!

Ah I cannot even imagine reading a book on a phone, such patience you must have! lol

yeah, but Jonny's got a 25 inch phone ;-)

I agree with Jonny's take -- the descriptions of Jurgis's socialist conversion made me think about how powerful those ideas were in the early 20th century and how they could really move people emotionally, like the woman Jurgis sits next to at the first meeting. The ending of Under Fire (a really great 1001 book) was similar: that book was written a decade or so later than the Sinclair and also traces the horrific experiences of a group of men and the survivor's eventual political awakening. In both cases it came as a bit of a surprise but that is because we are more politically cynical than that era, I think.

I recently read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and, while I thought the book was an important read, some of the politics seemed laid on with a trowel. the book did resonate with me - especially as the life it was describing would have been similar to my mother's family from Glasgow. We are reading from a different time, an age when a lot of the changes have already been made. Annamorphic's comment about living in a more politically cynical era, or maybe even a more politically apathetic era.

I agree with you soffitta1. Although very sympathetic to the message of books like Jungle and Ragged, "laid on with a trowel" is a particularly apt metaphor, especially with the latter title being about builders and decorators.

However, these are light in comparison with a certain axe-grinder who tried hard to pretend she was a novelist. She laid it on not with a trowel but with landfill. Of whom do I speak? None other than Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged has to be the worst disguise wrapped around a polemic I've ever read.

32 - that's funny because that is pretty much what my husband said after starting Atlas Shrugged. Needless to say, he never finished and still snarks about it today.

I only finished it because a good friend at the time raved about it. It sparked possibly the longest review I've ever written either:

http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=35

Wow - I finished the book yesterday and I am so glad I read it. I read The Grapes of Wrath earlier this year and while the Steinbeck imo is much better written, they complement each other very well.
The plot sure is a bit over-the-top at times with the extreme ups and downs in Jurgis' life, but I don't doubt anything Sinclair wrote about the situation in the slaughterhouses. There are some regions in the world where similar inhuman forms of industrialism are happening right now and we (me included) happily buy its products and therefore this book is still important. Sadly we learned in the meantime that socialism has not provided the escape people understandably hoped for in the early 1900s. I wonder what it is that gives those people hope nowadays. Religion?

Interesting comment #35. Has there been a novel about the people in other parts of the world working in those kinds of circumstances? I read A Fine Balance this year which was not about mammoth industrialization but did answer to some of your question about what provides destitute and desperate people with hope. One thing I felt there, in India, was that their expectations are lower and their community is more stable. The waves of immigration to America set up a unique dynamic, uprooted people who had gambled away their community for the promise of individual success.

You could see what happened in America as a grand scale version of what has happened internally in many countries. In A Fine Balance, they leave their home to come to the city, away from their community. That also happened in my country, the U.K., people left the countryside to go to the big cities, again cut off from their communities and their regional culture. Many were never heard of again, but rather lived (and often died) in the slums in those big cities. A hundred miles away from home might as well be a thousand miles if you can't spare the cash to go.

I am reminded that in Animal's People much of the focus is on the chemical disaster at Bopal, India where so many lost their lives and many others were physically and mentally affected by the disaster.

#37, yes, that's true. I suppose that in A Fine Balance we see them reforming kind of ad-hoc communities that hold up only slightly better than in The Jungle. Mistry still believes in the importance of individual bonds in a way that Socialism as salvation does not.

I still must read A Fine Balance (haven't found the nerve yet to do so, there have been so many warnings...).

I was thinking of many newspaper and magazine articles I've read over the years in the German media, mainly reporting on the circumstances in the Asian textile industry. India yes, but also with a strong focus on China where the industry has boomed over the last decades and incredibly big industrial centers were built. While it's not meat industry and people won't fall into the larder and hopefully shouldn't be eaten by rats (how sad was that story??) , the work on the machines is often very dangerous, a little error can cost you a hand and also a smaller injury can mean the loss of the job. Unskilled people arrive from all over the country, often young girls for whom the physical work is very hard, they sleep in cots in big halls and send most of their money home to the families in the country. According to the magazines prostitution and drugs are big issues as well.

Since then I feel bad when looking for new trainers and other clothes - but I'll buy them anyway. But it's annoying that the prices for all those items (and I mean big brand names) have been increasing continually here while most of the work has wandered to countries where labour is cheap and where people aren't sufficiently paid and trained for the jobs, just because it is possible. The article (let's say trainers) travels back to the US or Germany or wherever where some 'finishing touch' is added to make it 'Made in ...' and is sold for over 100 EUR.
It's not the end price I care about - it's my decision to pay it or not - , it is the fact that the margins are so huge and that it would be so easy to spend at least a little more on the workers.

I have to recommend A Fine Balance, yes it can be tough going, but I think it is one of the top 1001 books I have read. I finally got round to reading it, after at least 3 years of it staring at me from my bookshelf, when it was chosen as one of the World Book Night books.

Apart from Socialism, the aid groups are viewed with suspicion. I am with Annamorphic on her comment in 39.
They are two good books to compare - similar themes with corruption, hard work never being enough.