The weather in Paris

[chadadanielleKR]

In Paris, the weather is rather mild 9 degree F , rather cloudy with some rain until today, sometimes sunny. The anticyclonic weather of last week with its freezing weather is gone. Today looks sunny so far, maybe a day for a children outing. The Christmas holidays still continue for another week over here...No time for reading "The Jungle" until tonight!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone.

[Choisya]

It sounds a bit like dull, damp, dismal London! We haven't had any bright frosty weather since before Xmas Enjoy the rest of your holiday with those handsome mini-Frenchmen of yours HNY!

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chadadanielleKR wrote:
In Paris, the weather is rather mild 9 degree F , rather cloudy with some rain until today, sometimes sunny. The anticyclonic weather of last week with its freezing weather is gone. Today looks sunny so far, maybe a day for a children outing. The Christmas holidays still continue for another week over here...No time for reading "The Jungle" until tonight!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone.

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[vivico1]

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JesseBC wrote:
Could everyone please respect the spoiler rule that I was just told prevails on these forums?

I just started the book today and I'd prefer not to have it ruined for me before I've even finished Chapter One.

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Jesse, I just got the book and already feel we are having a critique overview of it all! AMEN to spoiler warnings! I dont know if they are going to work, its hard to know what to read, but i am beginning to know WHO not to read.

[Kevin]

We have removed a series of messages here, according to the terms of our User Guidelines.

Let's please keep the discourse civil. And, as a courtesy to other readers, please remember to use Spoiler Warnings, particularly in the early-going.

Message Edited by Kevin on 01-05-2007 01:53 AM

[BenKitchen]

Please read and email me with your opinions
I am on chapter 15 -16 I think. I am new to these types of forums. I am a 26 years old college student. I went to school a little bit later. I am A-D-D and was never taught to read properly and could not retain information. I recently taught my self how. Now I can read novels and remember what I read and soon hope to be as book smart as I am in other ways. I started out with a hairy potter book. Now I am on the jungle chapter 16. I have got to the part were things really go down hill. I don't want to give things away, but I was really disturbed. I felt emotionally connected to the family and now I don't know if I can make it through the book with so much happening to them. It makes me really angry at the world. Maybe I get to into books. Does any one of you understand what I am talking about? If you do please email me at kitchen.ben@gmail.com. I would like to chat. I am very confused on how a book can get me all worked up, but maybe that’s what they do.

[vivico1]

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BenKitchen wrote:
Please read and email me with your opinions
I am on chapter 15 -16 I think. I am new to these types of forums. I am a 26 years old college student. I went to school a little bit later. I am A-D-D and was never taught to read properly and could not retain information. I recently taught my self how. Now I can read novels and remember what I read and soon hope to be as book smart as I am in other ways. I started out with a hairy potter book. Now I am on the jungle chapter 16. I have got to the part were things really go down hill. I don't want to give things away, but I was really disturbed. I felt emotionally connected to the family and now I don't know if I can make it through the book with so much happening to them. It makes me really angry at the world. Maybe I get to into books. Does any one of you understand what I am talking about? If you do please email me at kitchen.ben@gmail.com. I would like to chat. I am very confused on how a book can get me all worked up, but maybe that’s what they do.

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Hey Ben, great to hear what you are doing. Rather than send a message to your email account, I have clicked on your icon and sent you a message on here, so at the top of the screen, to the right, you should see a place that says...You have no messages, or hopefully right now, it says you have 1 message and you can click on that envelope and see what i sent you Good luck and dont be afraid to let a book move you, if its good, it should.

[Choisya]

I agree Vivico - let the book move you Ben and engage with us here, not in private emails, that is what these discussions are all about We are all angry about such things so you are not alone here. And Sinclair meant us to be angry so that we went out and campaigned again such social evils. How else would his writing have changed the US food legislation?

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vivico1 wrote:

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BenKitchen wrote:
Please read and email me with your opinions
I am on chapter 15 -16 I think. I am new to these types of forums. I am a 26 years old college student. I went to school a little bit later. I am A-D-D and was never taught to read properly and could not retain information. I recently taught my self how. Now I can read novels and remember what I read and soon hope to be as book smart as I am in other ways. I started out with a hairy potter book. Now I am on the jungle chapter 16. I have got to the part were things really go down hill. I don't want to give things away, but I was really disturbed. I felt emotionally connected to the family and now I don't know if I can make it through the book with so much happening to them. It makes me really angry at the world. Maybe I get to into books. Does any one of you understand what I am talking about? If you do please email me at kitchen.ben@gmail.com. I would like to chat. I am very confused on how a book can get me all worked up, but maybe that’s what they do.

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Hey Ben, great to hear what you are doing. Rather than send a message to your email account, I have clicked on your icon and sent you a message on here, so at the top of the screen, to the right, you should see a place that says...You have no messages, or hopefully right now, it says you have 1 message and you can click on that envelope and see what i sent you Good luck and dont be afraid to let a book move you, if its good, it should.

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[PaulK]

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BenKitchen wrote:
Please read and email me with your opinions
I am on chapter 15 -16 I think. I am new to these types of forums. I am a 26 years old college student. I went to school a little bit later. I am A-D-D and was never taught to read properly and could not retain information. I recently taught my self how. Now I can read novels and remember what I read and soon hope to be as book smart as I am in other ways. I started out with a hairy potter book. Now I am on the jungle chapter 16. I have got to the part were things really go down hill. I don't want to give things away, but I was really disturbed. I felt emotionally connected to the family and now I don't know if I can make it through the book with so much happening to them. It makes me really angry at the world. Maybe I get to into books. Does any one of you understand what I am talking about? If you do please email me at kitchen.ben@gmail.com. I would like to chat. I am very confused on how a book can get me all worked up, but maybe that’s what they do.

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Well done BenKitchen.
I think you are having the reaction that Sinclair wants you to have. This book was obviously written to upset people and make them angry enough to push for change. I am only up to chapter 9 and I don't expect a very happy ending from what I have read so far. Like you I am finding the book difficult to read because I feel for the characters but I want to know just how hard Sinclair played on people's emotions to get the effect he wanted.

[Choisya]

Message Edited by Choisya on 01-22-200706:54 PM

[BenKitchen]

No spoiler don't worry. There was someone early in this thread that had a big spoiler in his or her post. His spoiler was only half right and half made up so even if you read it as I did your still good.

I am on chapter 26, I am very far because I am on brake right now because I am a college student. Chapter 16 is a big turning point in the book. It may make you very upset and throw your book like I did, but it gets easier to read after that. I feel like much of this novel was written for shock value. I think that makes it a great time to read a book like this because it relates to the shock culture of today if that makes sense. I didn't say that well.

I am now having trouble eating meat. Every time I look at meat my stomach turns a little. Don't be surprised if many of you have thoughts of becoming a vegan after this book. Although I think this book is well written I could have done with out chapter 16. When you get there I hope you hate that chapter as much as me lol.

I am getting better at reading now. I can read much faster now. I read and skim over some of the slow parts, I understand everything that goes one, but when I read fast I skip some of the details.

My moms side of the family is from Hungary. My great grandmother came to this country in the early 20th century, about 10 or 15 years after this book was written I think. I am writing my grate ant(great grandmothers daughter) a letter about some things because I think her dad worked in those steel mills that are talked about in the book later on. I am pretty sure a big portion of my family including my mothers dad worked at armco steel in ohio. I will try to post her responses on here. I think it would add to your reading.

[chadadanielleKR]

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Choisya wrote:
On the general subject of immigration, which has been raised on this thread, perhaps Americans do not know that recent legislation in the European Union gives rights to every European citizen to travel freely within Europe to seek work and accommodation (without passport or visa restrictions). There are approx 470 million Europeans with those rights, which are in addition to the immigration quotas Europe has accepted as part of its burden in settling immigrants from other parts of the world and to seekers of asylum from political oppression. I do not have access to recent figures but I suspect that the rate of immigration to Europe now exceeds that rate of immigration to the USA.

With regard to the 'Jungle', I fear that some immigrants are bringing aspects of their Jungles to their host countries, as well as much needed skills. The rate of sex and drug related crime has, for instance, increased in the UK with the recent influx of Eastern European immigration, and health & safety measures in some industries are being flouted by bosses and workers who have not previously worked to the same standards. Whereas earlier immigrants from the old Commonwealth understood English, and English has been taught in all Western European schools since WWII, most Eastern Europeans are not English speakers and sometimes have difficulty in understanding what is required of them. Upton Sinclair would have found much to write about in the new European Jungle

Here is a map of the new European Union, which will soon include Turkey:-

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/map.htm

Message Edited by Choisya on 12-30-200608:07 AM

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The jungle makes me wonder about the plight of the immigrants in countries like China and India where there is an organized society, a growing mass market and a growing taskforce of unskilled, poor and migrant people. What strikes me in the jungle is the scale of the "whole business": tons of food processed every day, thousands of unskilled workers and huge production facilities. Such scale was rather new for the time although the industrialization was well under way in Europe already. But in fast-developping countries of today...

[BenKitchen]

Here is the letter from my aunt. Her father worked in a steel factory close to the time period this book was written about.

Hi, Ben,

It's great to hear from you, and I'm so glad you've discovered the world of literature. It can add a new dimension to your life.

Yes, my father was a steelworker at Armco, but I'm afraid I can't tell you much else. He died when I was 13, and he had been sick for some time before that. I only remember that he often worked nights. There were 3 shifts. One was 4 (p.m.) to 12 midnight, and one was 12 midnight to 8 a.m.

I don't think Armco in those days was like the place that Sinclair wrote about. Of course the work was hard. But it was considered a relatively good place to work, with relatively good pay. I never heard any complaints about oppression or whatever and don't remember anything about safety issues. I take that back. My brother, Albie (Albert like our father), worked there as a "rigger." I don't know what that is, but it required him to work at heights and he fell once and hurt his back. He was ok, but I think he had chronic back problems after that. Ethel would remember these things better than I.

What I do remember may surprise you. I thought the steel mill was beautiful. At certain times of the day there was color in the sky like a sunset, but it was coming from the mill. And the structure of the mill fascinated me, with the interplay of the horizontal and vertical. A few years ago I discovered that a major photographer, Edward Weston, took pictures of Armco in the early 1920s, when he went to Middletown to visit his sister, who happened to live there. He appreciated its beauty, too. If I can figure out a way to send you some of those images, I'll do so.

Happy reading,

Aunt Jeanne

[fanuzzir]

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BenKitchen wrote:
Please read and email me with your opinions
I am on chapter 15 -16 I think. I am new to these types of forums. I am a 26 years old college student. I went to school a little bit later. I am A-D-D and was never taught to read properly and could not retain information. I recently taught my self how. Now I can read novels and remember what I read and soon hope to be as book smart as I am in other ways. I started out with a hairy potter book. Now I am on the jungle chapter 16. I have got to the part were things really go down hill. I don't want to give things away, but I was really disturbed. I felt emotionally connected to the family and now I don't know if I can make it through the book with so much happening to them. It makes me really angry at the world. Maybe I get to into books. Does any one of you understand what I am talking about? If you do please email me at kitchen.ben@gmail.com. I would like to chat. I am very confused on how a book can get me all worked up, but maybe that’s what they do.

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Ben, thank you for your frankness. I think the devastation this novel causes lies in the treatment of a young family, the most vulnerable yet heroic social unit we know. One Sinclair's strategies, however, is to lay on the mistreatment so thick that you kind of get used to it, and then numbed to it. He then wants you to pick your head up and find a larger picture. That's also when the novel becomes less engaging on a human level, though.

[fanuzzir]

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Choisya wrote:

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PaulK wrote:Well done BenKitchen.
I think you are having the reaction that Sinclair wants you to have. This book was obviously written to upset people and make them angry enough to push for change. I am only up to chapter 9 and I don't expect a very happy ending from what I have read so far. Like you I am finding the book difficult to read because I feel for the characters but I want to know just how hard Sinclair played on people's emotions to get the effect he wanted.

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I have been wondering whether The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (by Robert Tressell) is read in the US? This is a story of the exploitation of building trade workers in the 1900s with a similar message to Sinclair's. It is a book which has inspired generations of the British working class and is written in a lighter, more satirical, vein than The Jungle.

http://www.unionhistory.info/ragged/ragged.php

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That is new to me. Has anyone ever read "Looking Backward," by Edward Bellamy. It was a science fiction/reform novel, and actually funny. It was almost as influential as Sinclair's novel.

[fanuzzir]

Ben wrote:

My moms side of the family is from Hungary. My great grandmother came to this country in the early 20th century, about 10 or 15 years after this book was written I think. I am writing my grate ant(great grandmothers daughter) a letter about some things because I think her dad worked in those steel mills that are talked about in the book later on. I am pretty sure a big portion of my family including my mothers dad worked at armco steel in ohio. I will try to post her responses on here. I think it would add to your reading.

Ben, join the crowd of second generation Americans. My family came from Italy and Hungary, and joined the horrible conditions and labor pool at the early part of the twentieth century. This is all of their stories.

[JesseBC]

You're right -- it's the same people who don't seem to care if they ruin the book for everyone else. I'm going to check account preferences and see if I have the option of blocking their messages. Asking nicely doesn't seem to be working.

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vivico1 wrote:

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JesseBC wrote:
Could everyone please respect the spoiler rule that I was just told prevails on these forums?

I just started the book today and I'd prefer not to have it ruined for me before I've even finished Chapter One.

---

Jesse, I just got the book and already feel we are having a critique overview of it all! AMEN to spoiler warnings! I dont know if they are going to work, its hard to know what to read, but i am beginning to know WHO not to read.

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[Choisya]

What a fascinating post Ben! I think I might skip Chapter 16! You are doing extemely well for someone who has had learning difficulties - all power to your elbows, as we say over here! It will be very interesting to read your grandmother's comments and I look forward to that post.

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BenKitchen wrote:
No spoiler don't worry. There was someone early in this thread that had a big spoiler in his or her post. His spoiler was only half right and half made up so even if you read it as I did your still good.

I am on chapter 26, I am very far because I am on brake right now because I am a college student. Chapter 16 is a big turning point in the book. It may make you very upset and throw your book like I did, but it gets easier to read after that. I feel like much of this novel was written for shock value. I think that makes it a great time to read a book like this because it relates to the shock culture of today if that makes sense. I didn't say that well.

I am now having trouble eating meat. Every time I look at meat my stomach turns a little. Don't be surprised if many of you have thoughts of becoming a vegan after this book. Although I think this book is well written I could have done with out chapter 16. When you get there I hope you hate that chapter as much as me lol.

I am getting better at reading now. I can read much faster now. I read and skim over some of the slow parts, I understand everything that goes one, but when I read fast I skip some of the details.

My moms side of the family is from Hungary. My great grandmother came to this country in the early 20th century, about 10 or 15 years after this book was written I think. I am writing my grate ant(great grandmothers daughter) a letter about some things because I think her dad worked in those steel mills that are talked about in the book later on. I am pretty sure a big portion of my family including my mothers dad worked at armco steel in ohio. I will try to post her responses on here. I think it would add to your reading.

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[Choisya]

Good point Danielle - I wonder what the food industries of 'Chindia' are like and whether they have their own Sinclairs writing about them?

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chadadanielleKR wrote:

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Choisya wrote:
On the general subject of immigration, which has been raised on this thread, perhaps Americans do not know that recent legislation in the European Union gives rights to every European citizen to travel freely within Europe to seek work and accommodation (without passport or visa restrictions). There are approx 470 million Europeans with those rights, which are in addition to the immigration quotas Europe has accepted as part of its burden in settling immigrants from other parts of the world and to seekers of asylum from political oppression. I do not have access to recent figures but I suspect that the rate of immigration to Europe now exceeds that rate of immigration to the USA.

With regard to the 'Jungle', I fear that some immigrants are bringing aspects of their Jungles to their host countries, as well as much needed skills. The rate of sex and drug related crime has, for instance, increased in the UK with the recent influx of Eastern European immigration, and health & safety measures in some industries are being flouted by bosses and workers who have not previously worked to the same standards. Whereas earlier immigrants from the old Commonwealth understood English, and English has been taught in all Western European schools since WWII, most Eastern Europeans are not English speakers and sometimes have difficulty in understanding what is required of them. Upton Sinclair would have found much to write about in the new European Jungle

Here is a map of the new European Union, which will soon include Turkey:-

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/map.htm

Message Edited by Choisya on 12-30-200608:07 AM

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The jungle makes me wonder about the plight of the immigrants in countries like China and India where there is an organized society, a growing mass market and a growing taskforce of unskilled, poor and migrant people. What strikes me in the jungle is the scale of the "whole business": tons of food processed every day, thousands of unskilled workers and huge production facilities. Such scale was rather new for the time although the industrialization was well under way in Europe already. But in fast-developping countries of today...

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