January 2020 BOTM: THE JUNGLE BY UPTON SINCLAIR

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > January 2020 BOTM: THE JUNGLE BY UPTON SINCLAIR

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Welcome goonlings to the Awful Book of the Month!
In this thread, we choose one work of ~~literature~~ absolute crap and read/discuss it over a month. If you have any suggestions of books, choose something that will be appreciated by many people, and has many avenues of discussion. We'd also appreciate if it were a work of ~~literature~~ complete drivel that is easily located from a local library or book shop, as opposed to ordering something second hand off the internet and missing out on a week's worth of reading. Better yet, books available on e-readers.

Resources:

Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org

- A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best.

SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/

- A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.

:siren:

For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM me. :siren:

Past Books of the Month

[for BOTM before 2016, refer to archives]

2016:
January: Three Men in a Boat (To say nothing of the Dog!) by Jerome K. Jerome
February:The March Up Country (The Anabasis) of Xenophon
March: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
April: Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling
May: Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
June:The Vegetarian by Han Kang
July:Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
August: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
September:Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
October:Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
November:Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
December: It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

2017:
January: Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
February: The Plague by Albert Camus
March: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
April: The Conference of the Birds (مقامات الطیور) by Farid ud-Din Attar
May: I, Claudius by Robert Graves
June: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
July: Ficcionies by Jorge Luis Borges
August: My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
September: The Peregrine by J.A. Baker
October: Blackwater Vol. I: The Flood by Michael McDowell
November: Aquarium by David Vann
December: Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight [Author Unknown]

2018
January: Njal's Saga [Author Unknown]
February: The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
March: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
April: Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio de Maria
May: Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov
June: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
July: Warlock by Oakley Hall
August: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott
September: The Magus by John Fowles
October: I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
November: Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
December: Christmas Stories by Charles Dickens

2019:
January: Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
February: BEAR by Marian Engel
March: V. by Thomas Pynchon
April: The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout
May: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
June: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
July: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
August: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
September:Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
October: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
November: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
December: Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Current: THE JUNGLE

Book available here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/140

About the book:

quote:

The Jungle is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878�1968).[1] Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. His primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States.[2] However, most readers were more concerned with several passages exposing health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry during the early 20th century, which greatly contributed to a public outcry which led to reforms including the Meat Inspection Act. Sinclair famously said of the public reaction, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

The book depicts working-class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery."[3]

Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business.[4] In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. He first published the novel in serial form in 1905 in the Socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, and it was published as a book by Doubleday in 1906.

quote:

Sinclair published the book in serial form between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905, in Appeal to Reason, the socialist newspaper that had supported Sinclair's undercover investigation the previous year. This investigation had inspired Sinclair to write the novel, but his efforts to publish the series as a book met with resistance. An employee at Macmillan wrote,

quote:
I advise without hesitation and unreservedly against the publication of this book which is gloom and horror unrelieved. One feels that what is at the bottom of his fierceness is not nearly so much desire to help the poor as hatred of the rich.[5]

Five publishers rejected the work as too shocking.[6] Sinclair was about to self-publish a shortened version of the novel in a "Sustainer's Edition" for subscribers when Doubleday, Page came on board; on February 28, 1906 the Doubleday edition was published simultaneously with Sinclair's of 5,000 which appeared under the imprint of �The Jungle Publishing Company� with the Socialist Party�s symbol embossed on the cover, both using the same plates.[7] In the first 6 weeks, the book sold 25,000 copies.[8] It has been in print ever since, including four more self-published editions (1920, 1935, 1942, 1945).[7] Sinclair dedicated the book "To the Workingmen of America".[9]

The copyright (in some countries) expired after 100 years, so there is now (as of March 11, 2006) a free or "public domain" copy of the book available on the web site of Project Gutenberg.[10]

About the Author(s)

quote:

In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muck-raking novel The Jungle, which exposed labor and sanitary conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.[1] In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muck-raking expos� of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the "free press" in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created.[2] Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence".[3] He is also well remembered for the line: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."[4] He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms.[5]

quote:

By the middle of 1906, Sinclair had earned about $30,000 (nearly $800,000 in today�s money) from sales of �The Jungle.� Rather than save or invest it, he decided to buy Helicon Hall, a former boy�s school in Englewood, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, and turn it into a utopian colony for artists, writers and social reformers. At its peak, the colony had several dozen members, who, by sharing the cooking, housekeeping, and childcare duties, hoped to maximize their time for intellectual pursuits. While there, Sinclair ran for Congress as a Socialist and worked on a book called �The Industrial Republic.� His experiment in cooperative living ended in disaster, however, when Helicon Hall burned to the ground in a March 1907 fire. After that, Sinclair drifted from place to place for almost a decade until finally settling in California, where he would spend the majority of the rest of his life.

Themes

quote:

Sinclair embraced socialism wholeheartedly within months of being introduced to it, and, except for a brief interlude during World War I, he would remain a committed member of the Socialist Party of America for decades thereafter. Discovering socialism, Sinclair said, �was like the falling down of prison walls about my mind.� In September 1904, he penned his first article for Appeal to Reason, the largest-circulation socialist newspaper in the United States. Having made a favorable impression, he then received $500 to research and write �The Jungle,� which ran in installments from February to November 1905. Appeal to Reason never printed the ending, however, due to tepid reader response. Meanwhile, several publishers, including one that had given Sinclair a second $500 advance, turned it down. But Doubleday, Page & Co. rescued it from obscurity, publishing �The Jungle� in book form. (The book differs in many respects from the newspaper serial.) To this day, �The Jungle� has never been out of print.

Pacing

Read as thou wilt is the whole of the law.

Please post after you read!

Please bookmark the thread to encourage discussion.

References and Further Materials

quote:

In 2003, See Sharp Press published an edition based on the original serialization of The Jungle in Appeal to Reason, which they described as the "Uncensored Original Edition" as Sinclair intended it. The foreword and introduction say that the commercial editions were censored to make their political message acceptable to capitalist publishers.[11] Others argue that Sinclair had made the revisions himself to make the novel more accurate and engaging for the reader, corrected the Lithuanian references, and streamlined to eliminate boring parts, as Sinclair himself said in letters and his memoir American Outpost (1932).[7]

quote:

President Theodore Roosevelt had described Sinclair as a "crackpot" because of the writer's socialist positions.[15] He wrote privately to journalist William Allen White, expressing doubts about the accuracy of Sinclair's claims: "I have an utter contempt for him. He is hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful. Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods. For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth."[16] After reading The Jungle, Roosevelt agreed with some of Sinclair's conclusions. The president wrote "radical action must be taken to do away with the efforts of arrogant and selfish greed on the part of the capitalist."[17] He assigned the Labor Commissioner Charles P. Neill and social worker James Bronson Reynolds to go to Chicago to investigate some meat packing facilities.

Learning about the visit, owners had their workers thoroughly clean the factories prior to the inspection, but Neill and Reynolds were still revolted by the conditions. Their oral report to Roosevelt supported much of what Sinclair portrayed in the novel, excepting the claim of workers falling into rendering vats.[18] Neill testified before Congress that the men had reported only "such things as showed the necessity for legislation."[19] That year, the Bureau of Animal Industry issued a report rejecting Sinclair's most severe allegations, characterizing them as "intentionally misleading and false", "willful and deliberate misrepresentations of fact", and "utter absurdity".[20]

Roosevelt did not release the Neill�Reynolds Report for publication. His administration submitted it directly to Congress on June 4, 1906.[21] Public pressure led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act; the latter established the Bureau of Chemistry (in 1930 renamed as the Food and Drug Administration).

Sinclair rejected the legislation, which he considered an unjustified boon to large meat packers. The government (and taxpayers) would bear the costs of inspection, estimated at $30,000,000 annually.[22][23] He complained about the public's misunderstanding of the point of his book in Cosmopolitan Magazine in October 1906 by saying, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."[24]

Niell-Reynolds Report : https://wp-cpr.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/06/rooseveltletter.pdf

Suggestions for Future Months

These threads aren't just for discussing the current BOTM; If you have a suggestion for next month's book, please feel free to post it in the thread below also. Generally what we're looking for in a BotM are works that have

1) accessibility -- either easy to read or easy to download a free copy of, ideally both

2) novelty -- something a significant fraction of the forum hasn't already read

3) discussability -- intellectual merit, controversiality, insight -- a book people will be able to talk about.

Final Note:

Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the book!

# ? Jan 8, 2020 00:29

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# ? Dec 10, 2024 05:35

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

I wonder if I can find my old paperback at my parent's house.

Also, I can't find Jack London's actual review anywhere, just repeated uses of the excellent quote featured in the OP.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 15:33

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

What a great book! I've read it twice: once about 7-8 years ago in grad school, and then again in 2018. I think it's one of those books that's worth coming back to every so often as your own experience in the world as both a worker and an observer changes.

I recently read On The Clock by Emily Guendelsberger and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who reads and likes The Jungle. Here's how the publisher describes On The Clock:

quote:

After the local newspaper where she worked as a reporter closed, Emily Guendelsberger took a pre-Christmas job at an Amazon fulfillment center outside Louisville, Kentucky. There, the vending machines were stocked with painkillers, and the staff turnover was dizzying. In the new year, she travelled to North Carolina to work at a call center, a place where even bathroom breaks were timed to the second. And finally, Guendelsberger was hired at a San Francisco McDonald�s, narrowly escaping revenge-seeking customers who pelted her with condiments.

Across three jobs, and in three different parts of the country, Guendelsberger directly took part in the revolution changing the U.S. workplace. ON THE CLOCK takes us behind the scenes of the fastest-growing segment of the American workforce to understand the future of work in America � and its present. Until robots pack boxes, resolve billing issues, and make fast food, human beings supervised by AI will continue to get the job done. Guendelsberger shows us how workers went from being the most expensive element of production to the cheapest � and how low wage jobs have been remade to serve the ideals of efficiency, at the cost of humanity.

ON THE CLOCK explores the lengths that half of Americans will go to in order to make a living, offering not only a better understanding of the modern workplace, but also surprising solutions to make work more humane for millions of Americans.

As I read this book, I was struck by how many parallels I saw to The Jungle. The way that young strong people are originally able to breeze through demanding physical labor but are slowly and eventually broken down by it, whether they're handling carcasses in the slaughterhouse or picking items in a giant Amazon warehouse. The way that management treats labor as expendable, knowing that there's always a crowd of desperate people willing to put on a call center headset or take on backbreaking work at the factory. The way that young people aren't able to pursue a full education when they or their family needs money on the table now, locking in the cycle of poverty and precarity for another generation. It's definitely a good companion piece to compare what has and hasn't changed over the last century.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 16:13

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

I will say the biggest weakness of The Jungle imo is that Sinclair does what a lot of lefty writers in the first part of the 20th century did, which is put a long dry speech near the end of the book just so you, the reader, are left absolutely certain that yes socialism is good and here's why. My complaint isn't political, just literary. After a few hundred pages of showing us what you mean, now you're gonna laze out and beat us over the head by telling us what you mean? Boo! Boring!

On the other hand, given that the takeaway among contemporary society was "we gotta clean up the food industry" and not "this country grinds poor workers up into dust", maybe adding a little explicit message at the end isn't the worst thing an author could do.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 16:21

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

That was absolutely my take away 20 years ago too. I recall being apoplectic that those land lords, factory foreman, and mine owners would ruin these fine, hard working immigrants' chance at the American Dream, those damned dirty bad actors. How good it is, I thought, that the Robber Barons are consigned to the dustbin of history.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 17:01

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

Looking forward to giving this a read. I want to say it helped turn two of my friends vegetarian, but I could be mistaken.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 19:20

Toobly: Feb 19, 2013

Philthy posted:

Looking forward to giving this a read. I want to say it helped turn two of my friends vegetarian, but I could be mistaken.

Not gonna lie, I've only just finished chapter 3 and boy do I already feel guilty about eating meat.

I'm also looking forward to reading it all the way through. I was supposed to read it in high school but I didn't. Not sure how I passed that literature class... (or any other literature class in high school) I feel like if I had read it then I would have hated it and found it boring.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 21:21

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

Toobly posted:

I was supposed to read it in high school but I didn't. Not sure how I passed that literature class... (or any other literature class in high school) I feel like if I had read it then I would have hated it and found it boring.

I skipped a bunch of reading in high school English classes (thanks Spark Notes). I've gone back to read a number of those books as an adult and it turns out almost all of them have been good.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 21:30

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

Tomorrow I shall go there and get a job!

:smith:

# ? Jan 9, 2020 06:20

cda: Jan 2, 2010; by Hand Knit

pig slut lisa posted:

I will say the biggest weakness of The Jungle imo is that Sinclair does what a lot of lefty writers in the first part of the 20th century did, which is put a long dry speech near the end of the book just so you, the reader, are left absolutely certain that yes socialism is good and here's why. My complaint isn't political, just literary. After a few hundred pages of showing us what you mean, now you're gonna laze out and beat us over the head by telling us what you mean? Boo! Boring!

On the other hand, given that the takeaway among contemporary society was "we gotta clean up the food industry" and not "this country grinds poor workers up into dust", maybe adding a little explicit message at the end isn't the worst thing an author could do.

I really like the Jungle and it does have good bits throughout, but the first half where the family gets completely ground up in the machinery of capitalism is better imo than the second half where Jurgis develops politically. The development of political consciousness is a very very tricky to get right. Two other books that also lag in the second half for this reason are The Grapes of Wrath and Huckleberry Finn. Don't get me wrong: they're stone cold classics but I think they all succeed in part because of a momentum they build up in the first half and release in the second.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 15:12

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

I agree with that, the first half is very strong.

I'd say also that the city itself is such a strong setting that, when it's left behind, the books suffers from it.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 15:16

crazypeltast52: May 5, 2010

This has been sitting on my bookshelf, probably time to actually read it. I read Oil! a few years back after deciding the basis of There Will Be Blood would be a decent read.

# ? Jan 10, 2020 15:46

Arson Daily: Aug 11, 2003

I read this over the Christmas holiday some years back. Really put a damper on that holiday!

# ? Jan 10, 2020 17:08

Tomoe Goonzen: Nov 12, 2016; "Too paranoid for you?"
"Not me, paranoia's the garlic in life's kitchen, right, you can never have too much."

My cheapo used Barnes and Noble edition had this quote from Moby Dick in the foreword:

quote:

Go to the meatmarket of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal�s jaw? Cannibals? Who is not a cannibal?

Sinclair really hits hard with the dehumanization of this kind of work and pulling apart the distinction between Jurgis and the slaughtered animals and the horrible working conditions.

Why did the big Chicago meat-markets close? Did it have to do with the automation of work, transportation technology...? When I hear about slaughterhouses or meat processing facilities in the United States these days it's usually about the conditions for the animals and I hear very little about the people involved.

# ? Jan 10, 2020 17:22

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

I'm about ~120 pages in so far. It has been interesting, but I'm finding much of what I'm reading was taught to me at some point in grade/middle/high school already. It's amusing to see a lot of the same practices being used today. Ie. The lawyer who verified a deed was found to be a friend of the person selling. You see a lot of this in current home sales as well. Especially with inspectors. Real Estate agents usually have a network of inspectors they know very well and they'll come in really quick and sign off because the would-be buyers/sellers want to get the deal done asap. Never mind about your HVAC/vent system is full of dirt, or your roof is missing insulation, or your basement outlets are useless. (yeah.)

The clocking in a minute late thing still happens as well, just not as drastically. My wife worked for a Copps store and if they were a minute late, they didn't get paid for that 15 minute block and they got written up. If they clocked in early they wouldn't get paid for that time, so you were simply expected to clock in early.

Philthy fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jan 10, 2020

# ? Jan 10, 2020 18:43

Konstantin: Jun 20, 2005; And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

Kangxi posted:

Why did the big Chicago meat-markets close? Did it have to do with the automation of work, transportation technology...? When I hear about slaughterhouses or meat processing facilities in the United States these days it's usually about the conditions for the animals and I hear very little about the people involved.

They closed in the 50s due to better transportation, it became cheaper to slaughter the meat closer to the farms and truck it to markets. Slaughterhouses today are safer and cleaner, but you still don't want to work there. The general practice is to hire most of the unskilled labor from one immigrant or minority group, then fire them en masse and replace them with a different group if they start talking about unionizing. This works especially well if many members of the group are undocumented.

# ? Jan 10, 2020 23:18

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

Kangxi posted:

Why did the big Chicago meat-markets close? Did it have to do with the automation of work, transportation technology...? When I hear about slaughterhouses or meat processing facilities in the United States these days it's usually about the conditions for the animals and I hear very little about the people involved.

As Konstantin says, transportation had a lot to do with it. If you want a truly excellent read on the topic, I recommend Nature's Metropolis by William Cronon. It's an economic history of Chicago that focuses on three commodities: lumber, grain, and meat. Cronon tracks the rise and fall of Chicago as the king of all three of these commodities. In the case of meat, Chicago's rail system ended up being a victim of its own success. During the first round of railbuilding in the Midwest, nearly all railroads ran to Chicago due to the benefits of centralization. This served Chicago well for several decades. However, because these railroads were built by different companies, connections from eastern railroads to western railroads were incredibly congested and difficult. There was no thru-running railroad connecting east to west through Chicago; all the goods, cargo, and passengers needed to transfer via wagon and truck between railroads. Eventually, a second round of railroad construction directly linked cities like Kansas City, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City with big east coast markets, completely bypassing Chicago. Once this happened (and as refrigeration technology continued to improve), it made sense to move the slaughterhouses closer to the locations where the cattle was raised.

# ? Jan 11, 2020 02:07

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

That's an interesting bit of context, thanks.

You know, I hadn't realized or remembered that Boxer in Animal Farm was literally quoting Jurgis.

# ? Jan 11, 2020 16:29

clamcake: Dec 24, 2012

Konstantin posted:

Slaughterhouses today are safer and cleaner, but you still don't want to work there. The general practice is to hire most of the unskilled labor from one immigrant or minority group, then fire them en masse and replace them with a different group if they start talking about unionizing. This works especially well if many members of the group are undocumented.

Adding to this, my understanding is that the meat safety and inspection process has also improved but is still not where most of us as consumers would want it to be. Too many carcasses from speeding the line for USDA inspectors to take a close look at meat that looks suspicious. And if they slow the line to inspect it, there's a fair chance that there'll be some retaliation against them for cutting into the packer's profits. At least that's the takeaway I remember from a few books--Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and Slaughterhouse by Gail Eisnitz are two titles that come to mind. But those two are a good 15-20 years old at this point. I'd love to read a more recent book with a focus on the workers' conditions rather than the animals' suffering.

Also, I finished the book today and definitely agree with what others are saying about the second half being... less good from a literary point of view. I had trouble relating with Jurgis once the story shifted from his family's awful experience to his political awakening.

# ? Jan 13, 2020 21:30

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Are there specific authors who have succeeded in writing explicitly socialist popular novels, succeeding where it seems the consensus is this fails? Any Rands for the Proletariat?

# ? Jan 13, 2020 21:44

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

I used to work IT at an Oscar Mayer meat processing plant for a few years back in the mid-90s off and on. I was contracted out to help fill in when they had someone sick or larger projects going on. The plant was about 8 stories tall, and each floor had about 10-20 sub-areas. I used to service the desktop machines that controlled the conveyors, choppers, sausage squirters, etc. The IT area was in a separate building and before you could enter the actual plant you had to put on a plastic hair net, a helmet, jacket, and plastic booties. At every door you had to stand in a shallow tub of disinfectant, go through the door into another tub, then walk through the room to probably another room and repeat. To get to most areas you had to pass through about 10+ rooms. Because the building was built as rooms were needed, they usually just connected rooms rather than have a bunch of hallways.

Most times I had to go through the freezers that had just thousands of pounds of meat hanging which was surreal, then it would exit out into a service tunnel that sort of looked like the halls in Aliens I guess with lights constantly rotating and alarms going off people driving past in forklifts. Many service tunnels had little indents on the side of the wall that had a big tub marked with hazard signs. On the ceiling above the tub was a valve that would occasionally open on its own and literally poo poo out "in-edibles" which was mostly chunky paste gross looking goop. When the tub was full a mini forklift would come, pick it up, and drive it off somewhere.

Honestly, it was exhausting carrying a heavy desktop around, but despite that the factory was like a willy wonka land. Each room was unique and had crazy machines making GBS threads out meat slices, or making sausages, or boiling water for some other room. There would be rooms of 50 people standing in a line covered in plastic checking slices of bologna or whatever meat what coming down. That's all they did all day long, they stood there checking meat, tossing the bad looking ones off on some other conveyor which likely ended up being poo poo into a tub somewhere a floor below them.

One time I had to go to the hotdog area which required me to go to the 8th floor, which meant up steps the entire way, then go through a room that had an exit to the roof, across the roof in broad daylight and then into another door which was the hotdog room. The hotdog roller coaster was nuts. It honestly looked like a crazy marble machine where the balls go rolling up and down and through loops, but instead it was all hotdogs in a huge room that was about 200'x200' and 20' tall and they shot around faster than you could keep track. The conveyors made no sense to me but it was fun as hell to watch.

Most of the people that worked there were minorities that spoke very little English. The only white people in there were the machine repair men, room bosses, and government inspectors. Everyone looked dead who worked in there, though. They just had a stare. You would smell like hotdogs at the end of the day.

They had one building that I never got to go in that was the experimental building. It smelled like pure rotting death. I was kinda glad I never got to see what was causing that stench because holy crap.

Everything was clean, and they did appear to take safety seriously. I have no problems eating Oscar Mayer meats today. The plant was closed down about 5 years ago due to restructuring and it hasn't been sold mostly because of the layout. It started at a single or double story building and they just kept adding on wacky room after wacky room until it was 8 stories tall.

Imagine this filled with pink goop meat being churned.

Part of the end of the hot dog roller coaster. Sadly I couldn't find a pic of the hotdog singles being shot around.

I think this was the flavor testing room.

This wasn't from the plant I worked at but this is what a lot of the rooms looked like. They had hundreds and hundreds of people doing this throughout the building.

Here is a video of the plant having an auction for all the equipment. That last shot is the experimental building on the right that I never got to go in and smelled awful. Thinking about this more, it was likely just the dumping ground for in-edibles and they just called it experimental instead of death dump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hx-b63RnAQ

Philthy fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Jan 15, 2020

# ? Jan 13, 2020 23:35

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

Jurgis's stubbornness is getting on my nerves. I get that he is the vehicle to showcase the horror show, but it's frustrating as all hell to read. I'd be on the next boat back to Lithuania after his first realization. Nope Nope Nope NOPE.

# ? Jan 15, 2020 01:11

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

Philthy posted:

I used to work IT at an Oscar Mayer meat processing plant for a few years back in the mid-90s off and on.

Awesome post; and more than a little reassuring after The Jungle.

Philthy posted:

Jurgis's stubbornness is getting on my nerves. I get that he is the vehicle to showcase the horror show, but it's frustrating as all hell to read. I'd be on the next boat back to Lithuania after his first realization. Nope Nope Nope NOPE.

You're right that he's a vehicle, but even knowing that I'm struck by how well his arc answers a lot of the common "bootstrapper" counter-arguments to capitalism. Jurgis is huge, hard working, single-mindedly devoted to his family; he's dealt the best set of cards you could give a laborer and look what happens to him.

But yeah, like someone reading the start of a horror movie there were several points were I had the same sentiment about them noping out; I kept thinking how they could just call it a loss and take the next steamer back to their home town and almost certainly end up better.

I just go to the part where Jurgis is in jail and the almost off-handed way Sinclair mentions that the police would semi-routinely beat you to death in the station and say 'he fell' in their report stuck out to me in this second reading; it's a moment of intersection where The Jungle crosses paths with a whole other book that the muck-racking journalist might have written. It's funny, I really don't remember reading that part when I was a teenager.

Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Jan 15, 2020

# ? Jan 15, 2020 03:50

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

Jack B Nimble posted:

Awesome post; and more than a little reassuring after The Jungle.

Yeah, even though the line workers looked exhausted at all times I was told they were well paid. I never really asked how much, or looked into it because I was right around 20 and just knew I wouldn't be able to do it. Lugging PCs and monitors around without elevators was hard enough.

One other thing that I remember is on the shift change you would see hundreds file out of the main factory entrance, and you would see their wives and kids waiting for them and they'd walk off together. It was a bit :gbsmith:

The plant also had an executive side where it was suit and tie for everyone that worked there. The execs had a cafeteria that was the best food ever with chefs making omelettes and pasta and everything every day all day. It was super duper impossibly cheap. I just remembered how awesome that was. The plant workers were also allowed to eat there as well. A lot of this is slowly coming back to me.

I don't remember hearing any horror stories thankfully. But, I do remember everyone was scared shitless of the government inspectors. Maybe that's why.

quote:

You're right that he's a vehicle, but even knowing that I'm struck by how well his arc answers a lot of the common "bootstrapper" counter-arguments to capitalism. Jurgis is huge, hard working, single-mindedly devoted to his family; he's dealt the best set of cards you could give a laborer and look what happens to him.

Yeah, I often forget the subtext when I get wrapped up into the characters themselves. I wish I could pull it apart easier, but christ, every chapter I'm putting the book down wanting to scream. WHY. WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS.

quote:

I just go to the part where Jurgis is in jail and the almost off-handed way Sinclair mentions that the police would semi-routinely beat you to death in the station and say 'he fell' in their report stuck out to me in this second reading; it's a moment of intersection where The Jungle crosses paths with a whole other book that the muck-racking journalist might have written. It's funny, I really don't remember reading that part when I was a teenager.

This part made me sad because we are seeing SO MUCH of this type of behavior going on still.

# ? Jan 15, 2020 05:21

pig slut lisa: Mar 5, 2012; irl is good

Keep in mind that to get on a boat back to Lithuania he'd first need to get on a train to New York. Dunno what that would do to costs but I doubt he'd get a discount on a package deal for the two.

I wonder if eastbound passenger ship fares were significantly cheaper than westbound fares during this period due to the sheer volume of people booking passage from Europe to America.

# ? Jan 15, 2020 13:59

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

Oh hey, about that:

Immigrants Who Returned Home

quote:

We have more statistics relating to the huge migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although statistics on departing passengers were not kept until 1908, figures that have been developed by scholars reveal some interesting patterns. Several believe that, overall, as many as one in three American immigrants returned to their home country. In some years there was one departure for every two arrivals. (However, as stated above this does not mean the person was leaving permanently or that he had not made other trips.) During the depression of the 1930s there were actually more people leaving the US than entering.

Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Jan 15, 2020

# ? Jan 15, 2020 14:25

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

Thanks for making this the book of the month. I'm not sure it would have ever made it on to my radar. I'm glad I read it!

I did enjoy both "halves" of the book equally, though!

With the exception of..

The last 10 or so pages of socialism! now! was expected, but god drat that was probably the worst way to try and "sell" it. I think ending it with Jurgis finding out that the mystery speaker was talking about socialism would have been the perfect spot to end and to entice the readers to go out and learn more on their own instead of trying to spoon feed those last pages. But this was pre-smart phones, so....

# ? Jan 16, 2020 23:58

cda: Jan 2, 2010; by Hand Knit

Jack B Nimble posted:

Oh hey, about that:

Immigrants Who Returned Home

gently caress yeah. I was just looking for info about this very thing. Thanks a bunch.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 02:01

cda: Jan 2, 2010; by Hand Knit

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Are there specific authors who have succeeded in writing explicitly socialist popular novels, succeeding where it seems the consensus is this fails? Any Rands for the Proletariat?

The Grapes of Wrath?

To be fair I wouldn't say that Rand's books are more successful than The Jungle (way less because at least Sinclair is a competent writer sentence by sentence).

Constructing a narrative to make an ideological point is really difficult.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 02:05

Philthy: Jan 28, 2003; Pillbug

The more I think about this, The Jungle would make an excellent HBO type series that sort of revolves around how The Wire was made.

Season 1 - We are introduced to Jurgis Rudkus and their current lives in Lithuania. He meets Ona and the rest and they make their way to the USA. They are introduced to Chicago. They get jobs. They get a house. They are happy but something is off.

Season 2 - Meat factory. Canning mill. Struggles. Winter.

Season 3 - The struggle is real. Fertilizer factory. Death. Abandonment.

Season 4 - Life on the road. Self-reflection. Freedom. Winter comes.

Season 5 -Living the life with the rich, err now life as a petty criminal, corrupt politics

Season 6 -Running into Connor and watching life go to ruin, again, old friends and family, a new beginning, a new job ~fin

You could probably collapse it down, or have 6-8 episode seasons. But the way the book is laid out makes it look so perfect to contain certain aspects of it to a season.

Philthy fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Jan 17, 2020

# ? Jan 17, 2020 19:48

sweetroy: May 23, 2011; thats a space bar

man i hate yall

pig slut lisa posted:

What a great book! I've read it twice: once about 7-8 years ago in grad school, and then again in 2018. I think it's one of those books that's worth coming back to every so often as your own experience in the world as both a worker and an observer changes.

I recently read On The Clock by Emily Guendelsberger and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who reads and likes The Jungle. Here's how the publisher describes On The Clock:

As I read this book, I was struck by how many parallels I saw to The Jungle. The way that young strong people are originally able to breeze through demanding physical labor but are slowly and eventually broken down by it, whether they're handling carcasses in the slaughterhouse or picking items in a giant Amazon warehouse. The way that management treats labor as expendable, knowing that there's always a crowd of desperate people willing to put on a call center headset or take on backbreaking work at the factory. The way that young people aren't able to pursue a full education when they or their family needs money on the table now, locking in the cycle of poverty and precarity for another generation. It's definitely a good companion piece to compare what has and hasn't changed over the last century.

Thanks for the recommendation of On The Clock, I just finished it and it's fantastic. If anyone's looking for something in a similar vein to The Jungle but with modern companies, it's a very good read.

# ? Jan 20, 2020 06:03

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn't change -- not even incremental change. It is *control*. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it.

Philthy posted:

The lawyer who verified a deed was found to be a friend of the person selling. You see a lot of this in current home sales as well. Especially with inspectors. Real Estate agents usually have a network of inspectors they know very well and they'll come in really quick and sign off because the would-be buyers/sellers want to get the deal done asap. Never mind about your HVAC/vent system is full of dirt, or your roof is missing insulation, or your basement outlets are useless. (yeah.)

This is a matter of state law and varies massively place to place. There are parts of the US where it's properly illegal and actually enforced - usually places where real estate development isn't as much of an omni-corruptive force in politics.

I'm not as knowledgeable about USDA as FDA, but I can answer any questions people have to the best of my ability.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jan 20, 2020

# ? Jan 20, 2020 15:58

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Need noms for next month GO

# ? Jan 22, 2020 23:30

mbt: Aug 13, 2012

confederacy of dunces

# ? Jan 23, 2020 00:34

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

Oh, that reminds me that I wanted to suggest A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

# ? Jan 23, 2020 02:16

Toobly: Feb 19, 2013

The Plague by Camus seems relevant lately...

Connecticut Yankee sounds good too. I haven�t read much from Mark Twain and I think I�d enjoy that

# ? Jan 23, 2020 02:39

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn't change -- not even incremental change. It is *control*. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it.

Alcott's Work

# ? Jan 23, 2020 02:55