I was very interested inj to learn about Upton Sinclair, but this writing was so poor and scattered I learned much less than I should have in 320 pages. ( )

I dipped back into the 2006-07 Chautauqua reading list for Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair. I really knew nothing about Sinclair -- only that he had written The Jungle which is credited with helping to pass the first pure food act in the U.S. It turns out that he had a most interesting life both professionally and personaly. He wrote prolifically (nearly 100 books plus countless articles) on a wide range of topics, from politics and morality to extreme diets and psychic phenomenon, produced plays and movies and even ran for goveror of California. The son of an acoholic he was a life long teetotaler who didn't even drink tea or coffee. Although he won the Pulitzer Prize and was considered for the Nobel Prize for Literature, many felt his writing wasn't up to these standards. The author suggests that his main strength was in absorbing huge amounts of data and then making the information clear and accessible to average readers. He suggests that was most obvious in the "Lanny Budd" series in which much of the history of the first half of the 20th century serves as a backdrop to a series of 11 spy novels -- the third of which was awarded the Pulitzer. I think I may start with the first one and read my way to the Pulitzer...and perhaps beyond, depending on how I like the first three. ( )

I am perusing bios of Timothy Leary by Robert Greenfield and Upton Sinclair ("Radical Innocents" by Anthony Arthur). Obvious studies in contrasts, but both had alcoholic fathers:

Sinclair was an early feminist-phile, bitten by his own asp. His lovely first wife cuckholded him to his best friend, a minor poet. He was a precocious and productive child. Teetotaller, friend of Jack London's, Socialist running for governer of California, writer of over 60 novels in his 90 years. (Leary made it to age 76, surprisingly). He is best remembered for "The Jungle," his expose of conditions in the Chicago meat packing plants. He intended to elicit an outcry over the working conditions endured by the employees, but gained fame for exposing all the crap that was in the meat they packed. Adam Smith's invisible hand is also a stomach. We are selfish, self-interested creatures, without a doubt.

Leary did not fall far from the tree, basically an alcoholic all his life, we all know the rest--a clown prince in the burgeoning global village. Dropped-out of West Point as his alcoholic father who abandoned him and his mother had before him, during the early years of the Big One, over alleged violations of the honor code (involving the consumption of whiskey after the Army-Navy game in Dec., 1940 for which he was ultimately exonerated, but "silenced" for, as were two colored cadets from the moment they entered the hallowed halls, as was the custom in those days. MacArthur, when he was Commandant had tried to eliminate practices he, a distinguished grad, felt were archaic, fitting men for the War of 1812 and not modern warfare, but he had been swiftly overruled. Kinda can't blame Leary for being the iconoclast he was, given the harsh treatment by the system in his formative years. Fascinating study of how he died, oh so publicly, with no remorse. Kesey was his fellow prankster until the end. Laura Huxley was there at his deathbed too. We need people like Leary in this world too.

Each of them distinctly American seekers.