Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century and brought into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, the book was championed by more progressive thinkers, including then President Theodore Roosevelt, and was a major catalyst to the passing of the Pure Food and Meat Inspection act, which has tremendous impact to this day.
Five stars for the first 28 chapters, and 1 star for the last 3. The last 3 chapters are such a stark contrast to the rest of the book that if I didn't know better, I would have guessed they were written by a different author. It would be like if Angela's Ashes ended with 3 chapters on why you shouldn't vaccinate your children. It's so illogical and out of place, that it risks ruining the entire book.
(hidden for spoilers, but they are mild spoilers.)
This is not a subtle novel. Upton Sinclair was a muckraker journalist and clearly his intent here was to expose the horrors of unfettered capitalism and the , through the story of an immigrant family trying to survive in the Chicago meatpacking district.
The descriptions are lurid, the plot is melodramatic, and the various trials the main character endures are hard to take. Just when one miserable thing happens there’s another miserable thing, everyone cheats and robs everyone else, half the characters die horribly, it is an unending litany of abuse and injury and lying and death. I had to alternate reading chapters in this book with something lighter because this book was just so dark.
Toward the end the main character discovers socialism, and suddenly everything starts to go right for him (like I said, not a subtle book). While the …
(hidden for spoilers, but they are mild spoilers.)
This is not a subtle novel. Upton Sinclair was a muckraker journalist and clearly his intent here was to expose the horrors of unfettered capitalism and the , through the story of an immigrant family trying to survive in the Chicago meatpacking district.
The descriptions are lurid, the plot is melodramatic, and the various trials the main character endures are hard to take. Just when one miserable thing happens there’s another miserable thing, everyone cheats and robs everyone else, half the characters die horribly, it is an unending litany of abuse and injury and lying and death. I had to alternate reading chapters in this book with something lighter because this book was just so dark.
Toward the end the main character discovers socialism, and suddenly everything starts to go right for him (like I said, not a subtle book). While the book became decidedly more cheerful at this point, it also turned a lot more preachy, and ends feeling like aggressively naked propaganda for the socialist movement.
So, two stars for the quality of the book as a novel. But I did feel this book was worth reading for the echoes of the past in current politics, which gives it another star. The abuses against the workers described in this book are not that far off from what is common behavior today. Different industries, different eras, different immigrant populations, but the same problems. We’ve learned nothing at all in 110 years.
One other note: This book is known for causing such outrage at the time that it led federal slaughterhouse reforms and regulation. But all the actual reforms that happened were around food safety and animal welfare, around avoiding putting diseased animals and spoiled meat into the food supply. Those things were important, of course, but it saddened me that given the popularity of the book there was not a single law changed about the plight of the workers. As Sinclair commented, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
Depressing. Poverty vs the trusts, Chicago politics, homelessness and desperation and immigration. Depressing.
