Londons Falling

Survival of the most corrupt (3.5 stars)

Rating: 3/5
Comments:
Written in 1906, The Jungle is the very unhappy story of Jurgis, an illiterate Lithuanian immigrant, who finds work in the meat packing industry outside of Chicago. He marries his fiancée, Ona, and tries to create a decent life in America. Unfortunately, they and their extended family naïvely believe Jurgis alone will be able to support them - he is, after all, young, very strong, and entirely willing. But one by one everyone, including the children, is forced to take horrendously frightening jobs. They innocently fall prey to unscrupulous employers and lenders, becoming essentially paid slaves, wearing themselves out physically and morally.

From a literary standpoint (not that I'm an expert judge) I found the language and writing a bit flat, and it seems obvious that it was meant primarily as propaganda. However, the title is clever in that it evokes a lush, green, and paradisiacal setting (probably especially so to 1906 audiences), which is how many view the United States then and now. Instead the characters run into a reality every bit as menacing and dangerous as a real jungle would be. I also found the moral decay was portrayed in a very interesting and believable way: because of their desperate circumstances they initially accept the idea of the children working, to beating the traumatized 13 year old Stanislovas to get him to go to work on snowy days, to Ona's handling of her boss' advances. Apart from that, I think the book's merit stems mostly from the social and political implications.

I heard about this book many times in economics classes and I determined to eventually read it. But it is such an unhappy and miserable book that once I finally picked it up I regret I am unable to finish it, although I may come back to it another time (I listened to the audio book at the gym each morning and it's NOT a pleasant way to start the day, especially around the Christmas season). Nevertheless, this book was highly influential in 1906 in correcting some of the abuses in the food industry, leading to the eventual establishment of the FDA. Unfortunately, Sinclair's purpose in writing it was instead to expose the inhuman conditions the workers were subjected to, but this aspect received far less attention. And while the book misguidedly extols Socialism at the end as a panacea to the ills of Capitalism, it was a good illustration of the potential for abuse and corruption that is usually overlooked and ignored. True: it's fiction even if it is based on the reality Sinclair saw, but still a valid reminder that our capitalist system isn't perfect, and is perhaps a good counterpoint to George Orwell's 1984 (which my teenage son recently read for school and discussed with me).

So, while I didn't particularly enjoy reading it, I recognize the book's importance even though I think Socialism is a greater evil (I suspect Sinclair might have been very disturbed at the corruption later displayed by Socialist and Communist governments). The audio book version I listened to was read by Robert Morris, who does an excellent job, particularly with the Lithuanian accents.

Very useful

Rating: 5/5
Comments:
I needed this book for my son's history class. It was a very reasonable price and in perfect condition. Thanks!

Classic exposure of capitalism

Rating: 5/5
Comments:
This great novel exposes the appalling, brutal exploitation of American workers. Upton Sinclair shows how the employer uses unemployment to keep wages low and conditions vile.

He also shows how the employer Durham used immigration to undermine the workers. "The Bohemians had come then, and after them the Poles. People said that old man Durham himself was responsible for these immigrations; he had sworn that he would fix the people of Packingtown so that they would never again call a strike on him, and so he had sent his agents into every city and village in Europe to spread the tale of the chances of work and high wages at the stockyards. The people had come in hordes; and old Durham had squeezed them tighter and tighter, speeding them up and grinding them to pieces, and sending for new ones. The Poles, who had come by tens of thousands, had been driven to the wall by the Lithuanians, and now the Lithuanians were giving way to the Slovaks."