Well, here we are at the end of the book and where rather than understanding the book thus far, the debates on its merit at what Sinclair was trying to do and how he did it can really begin.
There are the good and the bad of this book. First, looking at the book in a literary sense, Sinclair, for the first 2/3 of the book really has a great style of presenting his characters, their lives,problems and the horrors of the meat packing industry, that he really makes you see and feel it through Jurgis' eyes. These are people that you care about from the first, they are real. The slaughterhouse is described in all its "glory" so well, that it should turn the stomach of anyone eating meat products and now wondering, does this have a rat, or tuberculosis or HUMAN parts in it? He is such a vivid writer that he really brings you into the story.
Looking at another good point, the book did have an influential effect on the meat packing industry with the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Food and Drug Administration. Thank goodness too huh! You know, I read in part of a biography on Sinclair today that he actually opposed this legislation, seeing it as an unjustified boon to large meatpackers. Ironic huh? I think though that this look at the industry did affect others later too and thats a good thing.
Now to what was the bad things about the book. I think, the last three chapters, rather than do what Sinclair wanted, to hit the hearts of the people about the plight of the workers, actually blew it for a couple of reasons.
Sinclair has a sharp eye for detail and what a journey he takes us on through the eyes of Jurgis. You have just spent almost an entire book, building the details of what is happening and going through it all with the protagonist, Jurgis , then BAM! A complete change of style.
Jurgis who has been through it all and has once again tried to go out and gain work,feeling really lost again, goes into a place where there are lots of people, in hopes for a little rest, some warthm,and who knows maybe some food with all the goings on. He sits and then the book takes on a whole new character. What follows is not only just a bunch of propaganda, as some who read the book before and then left have said, but has done it badly too. I agreed while first reading the book, that whats wrong with propaganda if it does something good and was looking for that. What i read was like the tale of the fallen man, lost at any and everything he did, stumbles into a huge religious revival and in all the speeches and ferver,"sees the light, is reborn!" How utterly disappointing as a way to get across other ways to solve the workers problems.
Let me share a quote with you, that I couldnt say better myself and as I felt this very thing at the end. Thats what got me researching some about the book after reading it to see if it was just me and I had lost the point or feeling of the book or was it a common problem wiht the ending. " Ironically, the peoples’ movement seems devoid of real human beings.(which up till now was what made you care). If Sinclair wants the reader to identify with his socialists, he fails because there is no real human being with whom to identify. Jurgis, a constricted character to begin with, almost disappears, and the new characters are flatter than any that Sinclair has offered so far."
This was a huge problem for me, the protagonist changed from a human, who through him we felt the pains and lessons, to a thing, Socialism. And Sinclair, in these last three chapters, seems like now he is just writing a pamplet on the virtues of Socialism. He lectures us with it and the human aspect that lead us up to this in the form of Jurgis and his thoughts, are all but lost. He just fades into the background and agrees with what is being expounded instead of continuing the formula of letting us FEEL through Jurgis what it is that he is supposedly learning. Oh, you get Jurgis feeling that he has finally found something. Again, its like, well stand up and shout Hallalujah! I have found my savior! Now things are going to be better I know it! And gee, they do too, once he is "converted", just around the corner is the job of his life and he is fixed for the rest of his life because of it. This just has no realism to it in the face of the rest of the book.
Aside from expounding the virtues of socialist ideas to us, Sinclair is short on details (at one point mentioning something Jurgis learned, or would at least at a later date), when this was his strong point in the rest of the book.We spend three chapters being told what he has found out, learned and have been taken out of the narrative style of the book before that allowed us to understand it throught Jurgis. So I agree with the above quote that Jurgis has all but disappeared and the Socialism he wants us to understand is now devoid of the human with whom to identify.
You have this great book, that in the end was like being forced to sit down in one of those meetings and have speeches thrown at you. The problem is, if you bring people along this far with a character we expect to learn with and then just drop him in a new story of the virtues of Socialism, you lose your audience on the point you are trying to make because its so seperate from the rest of the book, the protagonist you had, there is no interest for helping the working man because the need is lost in the political propaganda you now are force to endure.
Sinclair aimed at the heart but then took the heart out of it. And the shouts at the end of "Chicago will be ours!" is so contrived and unreal, you now wonder if they should stand and raise their hands in a particular salute reminiscent of a later time to come.
Most of the book is a magnificent indictment of the meatpacking industry and because it was, it helped bring about changes. The last part on Socialism, seems just dropped into the story and best done in more detail in another book that is for just that, the expounding and explaining of Socialism. Because of the way it was presented and because it wasnt a solution thus presented that was going to move people to change to Socialism, it may have been detrimental in that people then, not seeing it as a solution, just a bad ending to a good story were not moved to help the working man by it at all. Sinclairs desired message was lost and the outcome proved it. Interesting enough, it is said that ultimately, Sinclair himself disavowed the ending.
It was a marvelous book for the most part, a real eye opener. I loved Sinclairs writing and he had my head and heart till as I said in another post, 2/3s through we start to become desensitized to it because sometimes more is not better, when the feeling you want has been achieved in less. He did this at the first with the metaphor of man and the hogs, remember? I loved his metaphor as Jurgis was watching and glad he wasnt a hog. You know in your heart that he is exactly that, but then there were two pages of the feelings of the hog and humanizing the hog after such a good point was made about the dehumanizing of the man, watered it down. This was the same for the last of the book, after going over it so much that we become desensitized to it, then the idea of socialism as the way out, becomes nothing more than a man's indulgence into his own political rhetoric. Its a shame really, I think with a different ending, I am not sure what at this moment, but with this book to that point and a different ending, I think he really would have hit the heart as he had wanted.
The proof is in the pudding. Great health legislation has come about since then, socialism as a remedy to our ills has not. We have had changes that have helped the working man and if the fit the ideas of socialism too, I have no problem with that. Its just as has been stated elsewhere by some, we have within the framework of democracy, the tools to make the changes, so we can have hope for the future. Democracy is not a static order so its up to us to make the right changes.
Now let the discussions begin! lol
There are the good and the bad of this book. First, looking at the book in a literary sense, Sinclair, for the first 2/3 of the book really has a great style of presenting his characters, their lives,problems and the horrors of the meat packing industry, that he really makes you see and feel it through Jurgis' eyes. These are people that you care about from the first, they are real. The slaughterhouse is described in all its "glory" so well, that it should turn the stomach of anyone eating meat products and now wondering, does this have a rat, or tuberculosis or HUMAN parts in it? He is such a vivid writer that he really brings you into the story.
Looking at another good point, the book did have an influential effect on the meat packing industry with the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Food and Drug Administration. Thank goodness too huh! You know, I read in part of a biography on Sinclair today that he actually opposed this legislation, seeing it as an unjustified boon to large meatpackers. Ironic huh? I think though that this look at the industry did affect others later too and thats a good thing.
Now to what was the bad things about the book. I think, the last three chapters, rather than do what Sinclair wanted, to hit the hearts of the people about the plight of the workers, actually blew it for a couple of reasons.
Sinclair has a sharp eye for detail and what a journey he takes us on through the eyes of Jurgis. You have just spent almost an entire book, building the details of what is happening and going through it all with the protagonist, Jurgis , then BAM! A complete change of style.
Jurgis who has been through it all and has once again tried to go out and gain work,feeling really lost again, goes into a place where there are lots of people, in hopes for a little rest, some warthm,and who knows maybe some food with all the goings on. He sits and then the book takes on a whole new character. What follows is not only just a bunch of propaganda, as some who read the book before and then left have said, but has done it badly too. I agreed while first reading the book, that whats wrong with propaganda if it does something good and was looking for that. What i read was like the tale of the fallen man, lost at any and everything he did, stumbles into a huge religious revival and in all the speeches and ferver,"sees the light, is reborn!" How utterly disappointing as a way to get across other ways to solve the workers problems.
Let me share a quote with you, that I couldnt say better myself and as I felt this very thing at the end. Thats what got me researching some about the book after reading it to see if it was just me and I had lost the point or feeling of the book or was it a common problem wiht the ending. " Ironically, the peoples’ movement seems devoid of real human beings.(which up till now was what made you care). If Sinclair wants the reader to identify with his socialists, he fails because there is no real human being with whom to identify. Jurgis, a constricted character to begin with, almost disappears, and the new characters are flatter than any that Sinclair has offered so far."
This was a huge problem for me, the protagonist changed from a human, who through him we felt the pains and lessons, to a thing, Socialism. And Sinclair, in these last three chapters, seems like now he is just writing a pamplet on the virtues of Socialism. He lectures us with it and the human aspect that lead us up to this in the form of Jurgis and his thoughts, are all but lost. He just fades into the background and agrees with what is being expounded instead of continuing the formula of letting us FEEL through Jurgis what it is that he is supposedly learning. Oh, you get Jurgis feeling that he has finally found something. Again, its like, well stand up and shout Hallalujah! I have found my savior! Now things are going to be better I know it! And gee, they do too, once he is "converted", just around the corner is the job of his life and he is fixed for the rest of his life because of it. This just has no realism to it in the face of the rest of the book.
Aside from expounding the virtues of socialist ideas to us, Sinclair is short on details (at one point mentioning something Jurgis learned, or would at least at a later date), when this was his strong point in the rest of the book.We spend three chapters being told what he has found out, learned and have been taken out of the narrative style of the book before that allowed us to understand it throught Jurgis. So I agree with the above quote that Jurgis has all but disappeared and the Socialism he wants us to understand is now devoid of the human with whom to identify.
You have this great book, that in the end was like being forced to sit down in one of those meetings and have speeches thrown at you. The problem is, if you bring people along this far with a character we expect to learn with and then just drop him in a new story of the virtues of Socialism, you lose your audience on the point you are trying to make because its so seperate from the rest of the book, the protagonist you had, there is no interest for helping the working man because the need is lost in the political propaganda you now are force to endure.
Sinclair aimed at the heart but then took the heart out of it. And the shouts at the end of "Chicago will be ours!" is so contrived and unreal, you now wonder if they should stand and raise their hands in a particular salute reminiscent of a later time to come.
Most of the book is a magnificent indictment of the meatpacking industry and because it was, it helped bring about changes. The last part on Socialism, seems just dropped into the story and best done in more detail in another book that is for just that, the expounding and explaining of Socialism. Because of the way it was presented and because it wasnt a solution thus presented that was going to move people to change to Socialism, it may have been detrimental in that people then, not seeing it as a solution, just a bad ending to a good story were not moved to help the working man by it at all. Sinclairs desired message was lost and the outcome proved it. Interesting enough, it is said that ultimately, Sinclair himself disavowed the ending.
It was a marvelous book for the most part, a real eye opener. I loved Sinclairs writing and he had my head and heart till as I said in another post, 2/3s through we start to become desensitized to it because sometimes more is not better, when the feeling you want has been achieved in less. He did this at the first with the metaphor of man and the hogs, remember? I loved his metaphor as Jurgis was watching and glad he wasnt a hog. You know in your heart that he is exactly that, but then there were two pages of the feelings of the hog and humanizing the hog after such a good point was made about the dehumanizing of the man, watered it down. This was the same for the last of the book, after going over it so much that we become desensitized to it, then the idea of socialism as the way out, becomes nothing more than a man's indulgence into his own political rhetoric. Its a shame really, I think with a different ending, I am not sure what at this moment, but with this book to that point and a different ending, I think he really would have hit the heart as he had wanted.
The proof is in the pudding. Great health legislation has come about since then, socialism as a remedy to our ills has not. We have had changes that have helped the working man and if the fit the ideas of socialism too, I have no problem with that. Its just as has been stated elsewhere by some, we have within the framework of democracy, the tools to make the changes, so we can have hope for the future. Democracy is not a static order so its up to us to make the right changes.
Now let the discussions begin! lol
Choisya, we agree on many things about the book and its ending. Its funny tho, where you found all the deaths and prostitution and woes of the family, making them less real, these things I had no problem with. The reason is, we do know from our history, some of us, our own history,that these things can happen and all together too, where such conditions happen. This to me is not the melodrama of it. I believe you said you read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. That was no Victorian melodrama, that was real and wasnt it as bad as here and written with the same such detail? There were complete families and tribes wiped out.
In our south, with slavery, all these things could and did happen, horrendous things and they were not melodrama. So, I dont see this as too melodramatic,it made them real to me and feel for them. This was the human part he should have kept going throughout the end of the book. Instead he gave is an ending that did feel unreal and with no human element. What did become melodramatic tho, was to keep rehashing those horrors over and over and detailing them to the point of desensitizing us to their plight and then as you say...becoming bored with the melodramatics of it.
As for the young wealthy drunk man being something out of an old silent movie, heres the thing for me. There was a point to it but so subtle after all of Sinclair's detailing ad-nauseam, that I think it could be lost. What he found was, that the rich (personified in this young man) may not have been such bad people as a whole, but were as ignorant to the realities of what the Machine was doing, as Jurgis had been too for so long! Whereas Jurgis was too drunk on the idea of the American dream to see it, this young man was too drunk (here on alcohol but representative of his blindness born out of his wealth that kept him locked away from the world) to see it either! And interestingly enough,just as Jurgis is trapped in his world it seems, look how this young man goes on about how his father had trapped him inside this mansion every night. This signifies how the rich can keep themselves safe from the woes of the world and also away from knowing about them too. But when they were at a one on one level, they were not so different. This interaction to me if you look deeper really was a better argument for the need of a great equalizer that the whole end of the book. It showed that when they could be one on one together, they were just equal fellows, and wasn't that what Sinclair really wanted us to see anyway? I found it very interesting that Sinclair should put such a little story such as this in there.
Changes did come and continue to come.The specific ones Sinclair wanted at the time didn't happen then but gradually some have. He had such a great book going but yes, he most definately hit the stomach instead of the heart by not carrying through with his style and suddenly bombarding the reader with a political tract. But even at that, as we have said many times, he was directly helpful to the food health issues of the time. Other things were beginning to happen in the country and continued later, some he was privy too, some much later. I think one of the reasons this book has stayed so popular, tho it was never taught in any of my schools and I have asked everyone I know or meet since starting this book, if they knew of it and NONE had, is that there are elements in it that have spoken to different groups at different times.
We agree that it is a good book but lacking in areas and what for you may be the interesting parts and what for me are not the boring parts, is probably just a product of our experiences, both personal and from our different culteral backgrounds too, so that makes it interesting to talk about too.
You have given me a new term too, yesss, the last part of this book has a high "fog index" LOL! I think tho for me, I will have to sneak that term in now when talking to people who ramble on or I just have no idea what the heck they are talking about anyway. I will have to say, geesssh you have a high fox index! LOL!! 
Also Choisya, tho we disagree on the Iraq issue, I want you to know this, I applaud you for getting out there in a peaceful march and speaking your mind about it. I do not see that as a fascist thing at all. I do see it as the act of a free woman doing something about her beliefs instead of sitting on them. Just as I did this year when I really researched before I voted, then got off my butt and DID vote. The difference in your march and my vote, with the last line, "Chicago will be ours!" is that, i was not saying with my vote or organizations, IRAQ IS OURS! because we are trying to help with changes there and I think had you been writing this line for Sinclair, you could have done it in a way your march did. Instead of screaming at the reader CHICAGO IS OURS, which brings to mind such scary ideas to many many people, I bet you would have written, THE RIGHT TO SAFETY AND PAY IS OURS! Then Choisya, I would have marched along side you too Sinclair blew it to the American readers on that score. But yes, it has its merits and its place among books worth reading in any age.
I appreciate you wading through my fog index of writing lol. Online, i am aware of my laziness of shorthand in spelling, punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing. It comes from fast typing in games with people that i love to play, where as long as we get the gist of it, no one cares how it is spelled or punctuated. Believe me, if this was for a college class or some other paper, you would see a different style altogether!
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Choisya wrote:
Well Vivico it looks as if it is between you, me and the gatepost - goodness knows where the early, enthusiastic posters went!
In our south, with slavery, all these things could and did happen, horrendous things and they were not melodrama. So, I dont see this as too melodramatic,it made them real to me and feel for them. This was the human part he should have kept going throughout the end of the book. Instead he gave is an ending that did feel unreal and with no human element. What did become melodramatic tho, was to keep rehashing those horrors over and over and detailing them to the point of desensitizing us to their plight and then as you say...becoming bored with the melodramatics of it.
As for the young wealthy drunk man being something out of an old silent movie, heres the thing for me. There was a point to it but so subtle after all of Sinclair's detailing ad-nauseam, that I think it could be lost. What he found was, that the rich (personified in this young man) may not have been such bad people as a whole, but were as ignorant to the realities of what the Machine was doing, as Jurgis had been too for so long! Whereas Jurgis was too drunk on the idea of the American dream to see it, this young man was too drunk (here on alcohol but representative of his blindness born out of his wealth that kept him locked away from the world) to see it either! And interestingly enough,just as Jurgis is trapped in his world it seems, look how this young man goes on about how his father had trapped him inside this mansion every night. This signifies how the rich can keep themselves safe from the woes of the world and also away from knowing about them too. But when they were at a one on one level, they were not so different. This interaction to me if you look deeper really was a better argument for the need of a great equalizer that the whole end of the book. It showed that when they could be one on one together, they were just equal fellows, and wasn't that what Sinclair really wanted us to see anyway? I found it very interesting that Sinclair should put such a little story such as this in there.
Changes did come and continue to come.The specific ones Sinclair wanted at the time didn't happen then but gradually some have. He had such a great book going but yes, he most definately hit the stomach instead of the heart by not carrying through with his style and suddenly bombarding the reader with a political tract. But even at that, as we have said many times, he was directly helpful to the food health issues of the time. Other things were beginning to happen in the country and continued later, some he was privy too, some much later. I think one of the reasons this book has stayed so popular, tho it was never taught in any of my schools and I have asked everyone I know or meet since starting this book, if they knew of it and NONE had, is that there are elements in it that have spoken to different groups at different times.
We agree that it is a good book but lacking in areas and what for you may be the interesting parts and what for me are not the boring parts, is probably just a product of our experiences, both personal and from our different culteral backgrounds too, so that makes it interesting to talk about too.
You have given me a new term too, yesss, the last part of this book has a high "fog index" LOL!
I think tho for me, I will have to sneak that term in now when talking to people who ramble on or I just have no idea what the heck they are talking about anyway. I will have to say, geesssh you have a high fox index! LOL!! Also Choisya, tho we disagree on the Iraq issue, I want you to know this, I applaud you for getting out there in a peaceful march and speaking your mind about it. I do not see that as a fascist thing at all. I do see it as the act of a free woman doing something about her beliefs instead of sitting on them. Just as I did this year when I really researched before I voted, then got off my butt and DID vote. The difference in your march and my vote, with the last line, "Chicago will be ours!" is that, i was not saying with my vote or organizations, IRAQ IS OURS! because we are trying to help with changes there and I think had you been writing this line for Sinclair, you could have done it in a way your march did. Instead of screaming at the reader CHICAGO IS OURS, which brings to mind such scary ideas to many many people, I bet you would have written, THE RIGHT TO SAFETY AND PAY IS OURS! Then Choisya, I would have marched along side you too
Sinclair blew it to the American readers on that score. But yes, it has its merits and its place among books worth reading in any age.I appreciate you wading through my fog index of writing lol. Online, i am aware of my laziness of shorthand in spelling, punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing. It comes from fast typing in games with people that i love to play, where as long as we get the gist of it, no one cares how it is spelled or punctuated. Believe me, if this was for a college class or some other paper, you would see a different style altogether!
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Choisya wrote:
Well Vivico it looks as if it is between you, me and the gatepost - goodness knows where the early, enthusiastic posters went!
I like your take on the rich young man - hadn't thought of that angle - but I still think the writing of it was melodramatic, and that much of the style of writing was. Bury my Heart was different because that was not a novel, it was factual and so one was predisposed to believe it. On the whole I do not like Sinclair's style because it is too full of hyperbole, even the socialist bits. He over-eggs his puddings too much for me
Message Edited by Choisya on 01-22-200707:46 PM
Choisya wrote:
. One of my proudest's possessions is an autographed copy and one of my proudest moments was sitting by his side when I was around 13, when he took tea at my parent's home shortly after being elected an MP in the first Labour Government
Wow! You really were there at the beginning. Was national health insurance considered the foundation of the British social welfare system?
Fanuzzir: I have just seen this: National Insurance was the tax instituted to pay for the National Health Service (together with a large contribution from the Exchequer of course) and we pay it throughout our working lives - as a proportion of income. Employers also pay a contribution. It also funds State Pensions. In the beginning all prescriptions were also free but as the modern drug bills grew larger and larger successive governments have introduced nominal fees for prescriptions for those in work but not for children, pregnant mums, the unemployed, the low paid or the elderly.
fanuzzir wrote:
Choisya wrote:
. One of my proudest's possessions is an autographed copy and one of my proudest moments was sitting by his side when I was around 13, when he took tea at my parent's home shortly after being elected an MP in the first Labour Government
Wow! You really were there at the beginning. Was national health insurance considered the foundation of the British social welfare system?
