The book begins with a traditional Lithuanian wedding feast and party, described in great detail! Interspersed with that description are details of the people at the rollicking festivities, and they are all poor working class men and women struggling to make ends meet in a harsh Chicago city. Some desperately poor. The twelve hours of fun, dancing, and music are a great escape from their everyday struggles. Even worth spending money that they can’t afford and don’t have!

The groom is a man named Jurgis, and his story is the tale of the book. He comes to the U.S. to work for the "American Dream", but finds only a nightmare. From the horrible working conditions, to the people that prey on the immigrants, to the famine, illness, and unsanitary living conditions, his life, and his families' life quickly falls apart. People die, get maimed, or just drift off into the fringes of society. Drunkenness, prostitution, and crime become ways of life. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Though the book is over one hundred years old, it is pretty much the tale of immigrants now - and the poor and the working class - in the U.S.. Sad, but true.

The meat packing yard where “some eight or ten million live creatures turned into food every year.” Four or five hundred cattle per hour!
“They use everything about the hog except the squeal.”

“The officials that ruled it, and got all the graft, had to be elected first; and so there were two rival sets of grafters, known as political parties, and the one got the office which bought the most votes.” - Sound familiar???

“Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers;…”

“There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.” ( )

Page 32. In purple prose they know naught of germs, only the power of industry and of things Being Done. Lo! The great American muck-raking novel.

This was a really good read, and I think an important one for everyone. I read it many years ago, and my main memory is of the conditions of working in a meat processing plant, but its so much more. Jurgis, the main character is sort of a Walter Mitty of the early 20th century immigrant experience. He and his family come to America, find a house, get taken advantage of. Work in amazingly poor conditions in the plant, then things start to go wrong, he looses his job, gets arrested, looses his wife and child. He moves from meat packing, to a fertilizer plant, to living as a hobo, is a scab working against labor, then he works for labor, turns to a life of crime, then political corruption, then ultimately Socialism. It was a whirlwind. An excellent read. I had it on the shelf already, but I read it as a memorial read for Anita, it was one of her top 50 reads. ( )

Well that was unexpected. A thorough political narrative that, for me, took an unexpected route. I found it somewhat frustrating and much wished for a sense of justice in the in, which, I suppose, is up to the reader to find. ( )

Functions as more of a political treatise of sorts rather than a straightforward narrative, which exposes the ill-treatment of low-wage workers, particularly cheated immigrants, in early 20th century America. Through the medium of a tragic fable, Sinclair strives to represent Capitalism at its worst, and with bitter and explicit detail, sheds light on the injustice and evils that would be potentially concealed by the untrained eye. He advocates the cause of Socialism in its place and he makes a remarkably convincing argument for the undecided.

Personally, I found the story itself too tedious and predictable, and the characters a bit cold and detached; too much of a cautionary tale to make for a pleasurable read (like Black Beauty or The Red Pony for people). Nonetheless, the book is well-written with a sense of poignancy, and the concepts are both significant and inspiring.
( )

Very depressing. ( )

As moving as I was told it'd be; a true classic in an unconventional way. ( )

It's been some time since I read this, and I don't recall any details but still have a positive feeling about the book. ( )

I dare anyone to read this novel and continue to believe that laissez-faire capitalism is the best economic system. Although Sinclair inserts a lot of pro-socialist propaganda at the end of the Jungle, the harrowing story of Jurgis Rudkus and his family demonstrates the ways that the average worker is exploited not only by the corporation but also the political machine. ( )

I didn't finish this. I read about half. The reason? The reality was too harsh for me at the moment in life I was attempting to read it. Perhaps I would have gone further when I was younger, say, in my 30s or 40s. I did appreciate what I read of it. Sinclair's writing is vivid and clear. It paints a clear picture, although the picture is not what one wants to see, that of human misery. I found it to be very interesting in showing a place and a time in history. Like Charles Dickens, he is an advocate of the downtrodden. Unlike Dickens, he does not soften the blow with humor or heartwarming scenes. ( )

Here's what I wrote after reading in 1990: "Easy to see why the book caused a dramatic decrease in red meat consumption! Upton Sinclair exposed the digusting guts of the beef industry and strongly lobbied for socialism and rights of the worker. Jurgis, the pathetic hero, is tramatized by one "bad deal" after another. His honesty, integrity, energy, enthuasism are all driven from (him?) in the working man's America of the early 1900's / late 1800's." 2022 comment: This book deserves 5 stars for its positive impacts (Meat Inspection Act, Pure Food and Drug Act), if for nothing else. ( )

America was a different place in 1906 when Upton Sinclair published The Jungle. Teddy Roosevelt was President. The country was coming out of the Gilded Age capitalism into a new progressive era. Monopolistic trusts dominated the economy. Society resembled more of a two-class system and lacked a dominant middle class. Writing fiction, only realistically like a journalist, Sinclair showed how hard working class life was. A quick bestseller, this book led to national reforms, particularly in the meat-packing industry.

The protagonist Jurgis immigrated to Chicago from Lithuania. After moving, his family quickly fell into poverty. He worked as a meat packer, but seemed utterly unable to overcome the obstacles in front of him. His family fell into disrepair, too, and encountered death, prostitution, and drugs. Sinclair aptly named this book after the urban jungle that this family was trapped in.

The book ended in a jeremiad about the virtues of socialism. These opinions seem irrelevant and naive to twenty-first-century life, but are historically useful to understand the society and psychology of the time. No virtuous path to middle class life existed for this family. Understanding this points to its modern-day pertinence: People do desperate things (like Jurgis and his family did) when their lives lack economic stability. This lesson can explain some contemporary politics.

Though a fantastic success and insightful about American life in the early 1900s, this book has some shortcomings. In an instance of racism of the times, blacks were wrongly denigrated as an inferior race. The jeremiad ending the book seemed unnecessarily preachy. The answers to the problems were reductionistic as economics was portrayed as a catch-all solution.

Still, the historical value of this account remains. Working class life is accurately portrayed in a manner that resonated with the people of the time. Poverty and corruption – both in business and in politics – take center stage. These problems remain today. I hope that society has come closer to lasting solutions, but it is good sometimes to remember what going backwards can quickly turn into. ( )

Each successive page was an excruciating step closer to total despair. It's a relief when Jurgis finally stomps all over on the garden of his soul. By the end just reading the socialist revival section is almost an ecstatic experience when compared to the misery that precedes it, which I suppose was the point.

2008/05/31
It strikes me that religious nature of Jurgis' conversion is pretty apt and probably deliberate. Although the connections he makes help him find a job and the cause gives his life meaning and purpose, the movement itself is sustained by promises of a soon coming utopia that never actually arrives. The parallels to the commonly cited communist critique of Christianity are glaring. ( )

I was expecting to read a book that would gross me out of eating animals for a while. The description was there ... but can words really describe what was happening in the meat packer factories? One can only imagine the sounds in the factory and the smells.

It turned out that I was more disgusted by the exploitation of immigratnts who didn't know any better and really thought they were [b:on the road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21E8H3D1JSL._SL75_.jpg|3355573] to the American dream.

I was surprised to see this as such an anti-capitalist book .... with a conclusion preaching the virtues of socialism!! Well, at least it was a happy ending of sorts. ( )

This is the book that should have made the United States a nation of vegetarians. The harrowing story of how Chicago’s industrial stockyards took an immigrant family from Lithuania and ground them up and spit them out was the impetus for the investigation (and ultimate break-up) of the meat trusts by the Theodore Roosevelt administration as well as the legislation that created the FDA. It was also a vehicle for Sinclair to promote the Socialist Party of which he was a member.

Even though this book was written 116 years ago its descriptions of the horrific working conditions in the stockyards and the wanton disregard for working conditions or the safety of employees by the factory owners still makes for a powerful novel that sill has relevance today. ( )

I read this book while working as a bike messenger, often at the time delivering in what was historically the meat packing district of Chicago, now the west-loop. A location for expensive apartments, mixed used office spaces and very expensive dining. And there is still a few places that chop up dead animals. I think feeling the historical connection to space added a since of depth to this book for me. One of my favorite books of all time. ( )

I feel the need to review this book in two ways: as an impactful literary work, and as a pleasurable read. Clearly The Jungle had an enormous impact on food safety in America. (Perhaps less immediate impact on worker rights and Socialist politics than Sinclair intended.) I did learn a lot about the state of factories, living conditions, and immigration during the early 1900s. Truly awful! Definitely a cautionary tale of the evils of unbridled Capitalism. Though the purist Socialist dogma at the end didn't really speak to me either. Perhaps this is due to hindsight and my own bias as a child of the Cold War Era.

I found the writing and narrative of The Jungle to be decidedly old fashioned. Could have used a heavy edit and cut by >100 pages. (I think it was published serially in a newspaper?) The episodic adventures of Jurgis got a little tired by the end. I had some sympathy for him, but not as much as I feel I should have. I found myself skimming over long passages of woe and preaching.

Definitely a worthwhile read to appreciate how far the U.S. has come, and still see a glimmer of how easily we could go backward! Not a pleasure read for a vacation though. (Note: Not an easy read if you have a weak stomach). ( )

I thought of a couple of subtitles to this work: American Horror Story and the Flip side of the American Dream. The working conditions of the early Twentieth-Century were truly horrific makes one thankful of the social safety net among other things. ( )

I read this book in high school and recalled it as powerful and upsetting. This reread confirmed that recollection! The horrors of work in Chicago stockyards/meat packing industry in the early years of the 20th century were enough to turn my stomach as well as wrench my heart. Books like this one & Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy make it clear why socialism and anarchy were growing movements at that time. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to roll back or eliminate health and safety regulations for industry! ( )

The story is so compelling and with each change/turn of events your heart aches for the family (and eventual itinerate worker).
It suggests that the immigrant coming into Chicago is coming with no financial security and has absolutely no way to secure it over time based on the way work and life is managed by those (the vast majority) who are self-interested. It isn't even the union, the corporate/company but also the individuals who are all out to make a buck. Even if someone attempts to save, the saving bank can be uncertain and swindling is eventually suspected. Often the terms of the "deal" (housing, employment, so on) are misunderstood because the immigrant family lacks the language ( )

Its interesting that the FDA and the Pure Food and Drug Act owe their creation to a relatively few passages in this lengthy novel, specifically to a Victorian description (i.e., brief and vague) of the lack of toilets for workers at the meat packing plants and how the workers' urine and feces wound up in the shipped products; and an even shorter, as I recall, explanation of why the workers' scanty wages were wasted on the only meat products that they could afford: The sausages contained fillers outlawed in Europe because they had no nutritional value. (Consequently the workers bought and consumed more and more of them but still remained hungry.)

The other dilemmas of the workers didn't seem to arouse the sympathy of the reading public, one of them being the importing of young white Southern female workers and lodging them in company quarters with men of African and southern European extraction.

There is an edition that follows the author's earlier draft that apparently (I have not read it; its listed here on Goodreads and has a blue cover.) lays on the socialist manifesto in much stronger terms than the popular edition.

Finally I don't feel that the eventual salvation of the protagonist seemed especially realistic after the horrific ordeals he went through in the previous several hundred pages. ( )

The first half of this book is amazing, five star stuff. The characters are carefully drawn and the book has a wonderful poetry and suprising humor. Alas, the litany of horrors suffered by the characters becomes a bit numbing in the second half of the book. It's such a list of misfortune that you stop feeling that the world is unfair, and start wondering why the author is stacking the deck to make his characters suffer so.

Then, the last five or six chapters of the book, the characters almost vanish as the book becomes a treatise of the glories of socialism. It's as tedious John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged.

From a historical perspective it's interesting to compare and contrast today's world with conditions from a century ago. The good news is that many of the horrors portrayed in the novel have been improved. There are laws now that protect workers from the nightmarish working conditions shown in the book. For anyone who thinks that our social safety nets cause poverty should read this book to be reminded what the world used to look like before the modern welfare state. (This isn't to say I'm in favor of the modern welfare state, only that libertarian purists who imagine the world would be Utopia if governments left people to fend for themselves are fooling themselves.)

On the other hand, when Jurgis and his family get trapped into a bad mortgage with a lot of clauses they don't understand that is a major cause of their financial woe, I can't help but think about the housing market of just a decade ago, or most people's credit card contracts, for that matter.

The creepiest part of the book is near the end, when it's argued that working men shouldn't become attached to families, that the cause of socialism should be thier sole pursuit. Jurgis kind of disappears as a character with his own hopes and dreams and becomes a socialist robot with barely even a line of dialogue in the closing chapters. Read in the right light, this book is as powerful as Animal Farm in showing the dehumanizing flaws of socialism. ( )

A depressing classic about working class immigrants around the turn of the 20th Century, exploring the deplorable working and living conditions in the Stockyards section of Chicago. It's a bit over the top, as one would expect from a work from an activist. (It also reminded me of the melodrama of 19th Century novels I've read.) But any single episode recounted in the book should be enough to make one feel outrage. Even if it's not an enjoyable book, it's definitely worth reading for its historical value.
--J. ( )

i know it's a classic, but....listened to about an hour of this--it's not my kind of book. If it weren't so old, I'd turn it in for an audible.com refund. ( )

Yep, pretty revolting. I can see why it made a difference in its day, that's for sure. ( )