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Pyat in The Jungle
Jul. 2nd, 2008 11:15 am“….yet so sordid and petty, so ugly, so humiliating—unredeemed by the slightest touch of dignity or even of pathos.”
Novel 25 of the year was The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, published in 1906. I was rather surprised that I’d not heard of this book before, given my interest in the general topic it covers and the fame of the author. The book is about a family of Lithuanian immigrants and the troubles they face working for a meat packer in 1900s Chicago. If that synopsis causes your eyes to glaze over, please note that one of the characters is eaten alive by rats, while another drowns on a sidewalk. There is also prostitution, hoboism, and “scientific chewing.”
I found the novel quite gripping, keying in as it did to several themes that interest me, like industrialism, poverty, Socialism, and daily life in the 1900s. There are fairly detailed descriptions of the (horrific) processes used in the vast Chicago slaughterhouses of the day, and industrial processes have always interested me professionally and personally. I found the novel invading my thoughts at odd times, and had dreams that included elements of my time working on the line at a soap factory with the much bloodier details of production lines in the novel.
I could not help by compare the book to Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, a novel I’ve read several times. Sister Carrie was written in 1900, and widely considered shocking and unpleasant when it came out. It was withdrawn from print soon after appearing because it was too “sordid.” Until 1980, it was only available in a bowdlerized, somewhat moralizing edition. Sister Carrie depicts (at least partially) the desperate life of the working poor in 1900s Chicago, yet in comparison to The Jungle, it is a bloodless manners play full of quaintly naïve and sheltered characters.
THE JUNGLE was a sensation when it came out, though it contains fairly detailed descriptions of prostitution and drug addiction, and a primary character who falls into a life of crime. It might have been considered edgy even 50 years later. One wonders what changed in the six years between Sister Carrie and The Jungle
The last third of the book begins to strain credulity somewhat, as minor characters turn into mouthpieces for Sinclair’s politics. They sit about a room and talk about the wonders of Socialism for several pages, in a scene that contains slightly amusing references to 19th century pseudosciences like “scientific chewing.” This is seen as a way to reduce the need for arable land significantly by tripling the amount of food energy people get from every mouthful of food, simply by chewing each bite 35 times. However, even this section of the book, if not very naturalistic, is at least eloquently written.
Finally, I have this book to thank for informing me of the existence of the Chicago tunnel railway, which ran from the 1900s till the 1950s. 60 miles of narrow railway tunnels exist under Chicago, rarely visited and almost unknown even while they operated. It seems like the ultimate destination for steam-tunnel LARPers and urban infiltration fans.
Novel 25 of the year was The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, published in 1906. I was rather surprised that I’d not heard of this book before, given my interest in the general topic it covers and the fame of the author. The book is about a family of Lithuanian immigrants and the troubles they face working for a meat packer in 1900s Chicago. If that synopsis causes your eyes to glaze over, please note that one of the characters is eaten alive by rats, while another drowns on a sidewalk. There is also prostitution, hoboism, and “scientific chewing.”
I found the novel quite gripping, keying in as it did to several themes that interest me, like industrialism, poverty, Socialism, and daily life in the 1900s. There are fairly detailed descriptions of the (horrific) processes used in the vast Chicago slaughterhouses of the day, and industrial processes have always interested me professionally and personally. I found the novel invading my thoughts at odd times, and had dreams that included elements of my time working on the line at a soap factory with the much bloodier details of production lines in the novel.
I could not help by compare the book to Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, a novel I’ve read several times. Sister Carrie was written in 1900, and widely considered shocking and unpleasant when it came out. It was withdrawn from print soon after appearing because it was too “sordid.” Until 1980, it was only available in a bowdlerized, somewhat moralizing edition. Sister Carrie depicts (at least partially) the desperate life of the working poor in 1900s Chicago, yet in comparison to The Jungle, it is a bloodless manners play full of quaintly naïve and sheltered characters.
THE JUNGLE was a sensation when it came out, though it contains fairly detailed descriptions of prostitution and drug addiction, and a primary character who falls into a life of crime. It might have been considered edgy even 50 years later. One wonders what changed in the six years between Sister Carrie and The Jungle
The last third of the book begins to strain credulity somewhat, as minor characters turn into mouthpieces for Sinclair’s politics. They sit about a room and talk about the wonders of Socialism for several pages, in a scene that contains slightly amusing references to 19th century pseudosciences like “scientific chewing.” This is seen as a way to reduce the need for arable land significantly by tripling the amount of food energy people get from every mouthful of food, simply by chewing each bite 35 times. However, even this section of the book, if not very naturalistic, is at least eloquently written.
Finally, I have this book to thank for informing me of the existence of the Chicago tunnel railway, which ran from the 1900s till the 1950s. 60 miles of narrow railway tunnels exist under Chicago, rarely visited and almost unknown even while they operated. It seems like the ultimate destination for steam-tunnel LARPers and urban infiltration fans.
