Rating: 
Summary: Like Bran Flakes
Review: There are very few people I know of who have read this book outside of high school or college. I myself am only reading it because it is required for my American Studies class. I understand that The Jungle is historically relevant, paints a brutal portrait of industrial America, addresses issues no one else dared to address. The trouble is, for all his social commentary, Upton Sinclair is not a talented writer. I find his style to be heavy handed and, for all the gore, tedious and insipid. His characters, as composites of typical Eastern European immigrants, are mere caricatures with minimal substance. There is no beauty, no passion, no talent in Sinclair's novel. It is purely muckraking bent on spreading his socialist agenda. Granted, I found the end, when Jurgis turns to socialism, to be one of the more interesting parts of the novel. That isn't saying much. (An interesting footnote is that, while Sinclair wanted his book to spur labor reform, all it did was reform the meat-packing industry itself. It is said that Sinclair aimed for the brain and hit the stomach.) I'm sure reading this novel did something to raise my cultural awareness, or perhaps just it made me feel as if I should become a vegetarian. The trouble with The Jungle is (much like a bowl of bran flakes), as good as it may be for you, it doesn't taste that great going down.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic pro-socialism account of the failed American Dream
Review: The Jungle is a very well written book, particularly for an author who was only 28 years old when he wrote it. The story features an early twentieth century family who has just immigrated to Chicago from Lithuania, and their struggles to survive in America. This is not an inspirational story about the American Dream. Quite the contrary, it is a story about how the American Dream was a nightmare for many poor and uneducated immigrants. The Jungle chronicles the travails of Jurvis and his family, as they struggle to learn how to survive. It is depressing to read about the disasters which befell this family, and how their ignorance was taken advantage of on so many levels. One would hope that this no longer happens to immigrants, but of course, it does, just in different ways. Jurvis and his family work in the meat processing district of Chicago, and the book details the working conditions of the meatpacking plants. Those details led to investigation and greater regulation of the meatpacking industry, as well as modern child labor laws. In the last several chapters, we witness a transformation of Jurvis, as he learns his entire family has either died or is selling themselves into prostitution. Jurvis stumbles upon socialism, and quickly becomes a supporter of the movement to bring power to the working class people, and end the wage-slavery taking place in the meatpacking plants. Jurvis' transformation into a socialist is a classic pro-socialism story, and it was particularly interesting to read that part. This pre-communist account reminds us that socialism is really simply a political theory, which was never really properly introduced in supposedly socialist countries. I did find the last few chapters dealing with socialism to be hastily written, and not nearly as engaging as the first part of the book. The Jungle is a classic, and for so many reasons, it should be required reading in college, if not high school (but sadly, it is not).
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Summary: A wonderful and accurate historical portrayal of immigrants.
Review: This book is a wonderful look into the lives of an immigrant family in the early 1900's. Upton Sinclair was assigned to do an expose on the meatpacking industry in Chicago. The amazing part, what some people do not realize, is how factual the book really is. Since the book was published, only one discrepancy from the truth has been found; the inspector wore a different uniform. Sinclair's original topic was to inform the world of how "workingmen", as called by Sinclair, of the time were treated in the meatpacking plants of Chicago. Instead, the public centered on his description of how the meat was processed and reacted to that part of the story. This is one of the direct causes of the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Sinclair is noted as saying, "I aimed for [the public's] heart, and hit their stomach." The novel itself chronicles a Lithuanian family who immigrates to America in an effort to make a better life. Though this is not a factual family, many of it hardships were shared by families of this time period. The story is told through the experiences of the protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus. Jurgis is a good man at heart and tries his best to support his family. His efforts are met only with defeat. In many instances his family is taken advantage of because they cannot speak the language and do not understand the culture. Sinclair did a wonderful job describing the horrific conditions of immigrants and the "workingmen" in this time period. The scenes in the meatpacking facilities get quite graphic and gruesome at some points. Though this may disturb some, I believe it does a good job of giving the story some meat, no pun intended. The original basis of the story was to expose bad working conditions. These horrific incidents suffered by workers are described quite well, from losing of fingers while working, to falling into the vats of cooking meat and never being retrieved. I believe that all the gory details were described very well and were written in a realistic way that added to the story's purpose, which was to expose the meatpacking industry. It seems Sinclair had a hard time ending the book. In the last few chapters, Socialism is advocated as the answer to all wrongs. Sinclair, being a Socialist himself, may have wanted to add some of his own ideas to the end in order to try to sway the public's belief. I believe this detracted from the book and left the story dangling. Other than this fact, the entire book is well written, and I highly recommend it. The Jungle kept me intrigued, which many classics do not do, and I do not regret reading it in the least.
Rating:
Summary: Important historical novel
Review: I am an attorney, and by coincidence I read this novel about a month before I was hired by a labor law firm, where I represent labor unions. In our current extremely politically conservative climate, I hear a lot of anti-Union sentiment. To all the people who regularly tell me that they do not see the need for labor unions in this day and age, I would recommend this book. This book shows what happened to unskilled workers in the days before collective bargaining or minimum wage laws. It's funny that what this book is remembered most for is the resulting food sanitation laws--when it was Sinclair's attempt to display what is wrong with laissez-faire economics. He succeeds tremendously.
No, this book's prose is not beautiful. But the story is gripping. It is the story of a family who has immigrated to Chicago from eastern Europe. They cannot speak the language and do not have job skills. The family members are forced into hard labor under horrific conditions, when they are lucky enough to get work. What little money they are able to earn, they are tricked out of by unscrupulous landlords and lawyers.
This novel is memorable for its message and resulting reforms, rather than for its prose or characters. However, it is a wonderful book that I know I will never forget.
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Summary: Overall
Review: The Jungle was a powerful tale about an immigrating family with high hopes and dreams that come crashing down on them. Written at the turn of the century, this book tells the real truth. Upton Sinclair captures the truth about working in the meat packing factories called "packingtown" and what life at homes was like. The Rudkus family has high hopes of living in riches as they travel to America. When they arrive they realize America is anything but what they had dreamed. They try to survive from paycheck to paycheck, and when they do get paid they usually spend it quicker than the last trying to make a good life for themselves and their families. If something good happens you can only expect something bad to come up in their path. The socialist type of government is really brought out in this story too. It is hard to imagine this really did happen in America only about 100 years ago.
Rating:
Summary: Cow Tastes Good
Review: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a great book. It focuses on the hardships and despair of a family of Lithuanian immigrants, although in the end you're not quite sure what his focus was. It is a great book to read for entertainment as well as knowledge and provides a view of the world which most people never see, the bottom of the barrel.
The family faces a few too many tragedies to be realistic and the book becomes a spiel to promote socialism. But when you look past that, it really is a great book and a great chronicle of the working- mans hardships.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Factual Account; Mediocre Novel
Review: Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," a tale of poverty and politics in early 1900's Chicago has many good and bad facets to it. To give a brief synopsis of the book: A Lithuanian family ignorant to the ways of the "free" world moves to America in hopes of something better than they had back home. Upon arriving, they find out that things are worse than they could ever imagined being in America, and for that matter back home in Lithuanian. Horrendous troubles ensue. Most people associate this book with the the cliché renderings of the meat packing plants detailed in the book. Sinclair was given $500 by a newspaper for rights for a novel he had yet to write, and spent only five weeks in Chicago researching material for his account. After writing it and being turned down by many companies who were too afraid of what might happen had they published it, the factual portrayals Sinclair wrote were investigated by higher authorities, and upon finding that they were valid, Sinclair teamed up with Doubleday and his classic came to be, a classic that prompted government officials into making regulations still held today for food packaging and handling. The story revolves around Jurgis, the young husband who has come with his faithful (even younger at age 16) wife and his experiences. He realizes that there is no way he as an immigrant can obtain a suitable job, and is left to working in "Packingtown," the area where the meats of many states and major cities are developed. The gruesome accounts lie within---Sinclair talks about how unsanitary the workplace is for the butchers/cleaners/packers, citing situations where people fell in with the dead animals and chemicals and ended up being used in the meats since it would be too hard to fish them out; how pigs were tied to chains and hoisted in the air, screaming at fear of the unknown, only to have their throats sliced seconds later; how a little boy ended up drinking beer (an unknown beverage to him), getting drunk and being left in the factory one night in the cold, and how rats ate him alive. And yes, that's sparing you the details. I'm not the kind of person who gets easily disgusted, but one can definitely become grossened by page after page of such descriptions, so if you can't handle it, I'll give the stereotypical warning: don't read the book. Once you get past that, however, one realizes two things: the book as a novel in and of itself is perhaps a little above average, but the main reason why it has stuck around was because of the aforementioned contributions it has made to society. The story is fairly interesting, and has its high points (i.e. the chapter where Ona gives birth to her second child nearly brought me to tears), and even towards the last fifty pages or so, when there are situations where Sinclair does nothing with the story except write about groups of people talking about politics, I wasn't turned off by the general boring aura given off---I was actually pulled to it, and enjoyed it. As for the physicality of the book, it's well put together. It's not too long (380 pages), has a nice typeset and words to page which makes it easier to read than many books(I finished it in three days without devoting too much time to it), and has a good introduction by Jane Jacobs. Overall, this is definitely a good book to read over a weekend to mark off your "I've read <<insert title here>>" list. It's a classic for different reasons, but most assuredly worth the purchase. Enjoy.
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Summary: Socialism... WHAT?
Review: When I was assigned THE JUNGLE as one of my Summer reading assignments I was told that it was about the slaughter houses and expected it to be all about the gross things that go into our food. I'd heard THE JUNGLE called the FAST FOOD NATION (which I was also assigned) of it's time. But the book talks little about this, and focuses more on the hardships of immigrant life. The bad working conditions are certainly part of this, but the book also talks about the strains on family relationships, the bitter cold, and the way in which the family is taken advantage of time and time again. Suddenly, at the end, the book shifts gears almost entirely as Sinclair describes the benefits of Socialism. This seems completely out of place. If I'd known-going into it-that the book's purpose was to show the evils of Capitalism and the benefits of Socialism, perhaps I would have paid more attention and watched for clues. I say this so that perspective readers may begin their reading knowing to look for instances of Capitalism and Socialism throughout the book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Horrors of Meatpacking
Review: I read The Jungle about 15 years ago as a sophomore in high school. And yet, flashes of the book still come to me. The horrible story of how sausage was made, the way the meatpackers dealt with spoiled meat by taking out the bone, where the meat was most spoiled and using the rest of the meat anyway, etc. Sinclair wrote this book as a socialist parable to reveal the horrors of American capitalism. He thought that describing the meatpacking industry, an industry that Americans would really care about, would do the trick. As a result, Sinclair researched the industry for a relatively short while and then wrote his book. Perhaps he picked an industry that was too important to Americans because the book touched off a firestorm of reform about meatpacking, but no one was really interested in his socialist theories (with good reason, of course). The book tells the story of Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis and his family. Jurgis is a strong capable man who instantly gets a job in the meatpacking industry upon arriving in Chicago. There, he sees first hand the unsanitary and cruel meatpacking industry. This part of the book most grips the reader. In order to show that socialism is for everybody, Sinclair takes Jurgis away from this job, gives him an even lowlier job, then makes him a hobo, the puts him in management, etc. None of this works as well as the first part. Of course, some of the horror stories apart from the story of meatpacking itself also give chills. But the main reason to read this book is for the compelling story of the meat industry in early 20th Century America.
Rating:
Summary: A must read classic, despite the political diversions.
Review: Sinclair did not write this novel to expose the meat industry, but that is exactly what happened when it was published. Panic spread like wildfire through society as people all over discovered what was in their favorite dinner fare. Today, commercials may say "Beef--it's what's for dinner" or "Pork, the other white meat" but readers beware. Though industry standards have changed, meat still has to be processed and there simply is no pleasant way to do that.
Sinclair wrote this book in dismay with the democratic system of politics in America. His frustration with the social stratification that destroyed the family of his main character is genuine and understandable. It is also probably a very accurate depiction of what it is like to be a immigrant in the 1800s. Sinclair includes the explosion of the industrial revolution and shakes an angry fist at industrial monopolization. I'd like to do the same to giants like Microsoft. Id probably be misunderstood too though.
The book begins with Jurgis Rudkus and his marriage to a young and beautiful bride, Ona Berczynskas. The Lithuanian family gathering is incredible. People everywhere dancing making music and celebrating the union of two young hearts swollen with love. We meet the members of Jurgis family and realize that family is a common and indellible thread through all societies and cultures. As they celebrate their marriage in America, it quickly becomes apparent what conflicts they must face.
The young couple is working for one of America's largest businesses. They are poor and in a foriegn land. Processing meat is only one, albeit the main, endeavor that Brown and Company participates in. Despite their dawn to dusk commitment, they are treated with the worst conditions and filth that any family would hate to endure. Soon it is apparent that they are in over their heads surrounded by greed, corruption, poverty, sickness, crime, and inequality.
The story tells of Jurgis' fall from the happiness of a young and loving family to despise and hatred for the economy and society that drove him away from the only member of his family to survive. He must endure prison, debts, weather, disease, and homelessness in his quest for freedom. He even attempts to escape society by avoiding the city of Chicago where the story takes place. His freeloading life however is not enough to distinguish the pains he feels from losing his family. In the end, Jurgis turns to the rallying voice of socialism that continually rumbles in the depths of the same city that killed his spirit.
Sinclair leaves us with the impression that socialism would solve all of America's problems. Inequality, injustice, poverty, disease, and crime are all very real threats that we hope to alleviate through political means. However the reception of this novel on American society must have been a shock and a frustration. Still, The Jungle is a classic that has a place in my heart, mind and on my shelf forever. Everybody should read it to better understand the voices in the world today and the debts humanity must pay.
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