I relate to your reasoning for wanting to read this novel, my high school history teacher had a day called “hotdog day” where we would read the stereotypical book excerpt and eat hot dogs as a class. Deeply gross environment and I’m not even sure what we were meant to learn from that. But, it introduced me to The Jungle, flash forward 4 years I finally picked up the book. I started reading with the mindset of someone who grew up on a dairy cattle farm, I wanted to gain more appreciation for current practices by reading about the conditions that spurred legislation in the agricultural industry. While Sinclair did deliver stomach turning descriptions of slaughterhouses, I’d wager his exposé of how mistreated the American work force is in an inherently rigid system is equally is upsetting to stomach. I believe the parts with the greatest impact where learning that Ona was around 16 for their travel to American and experiencing thes plights as a child and when Jurgis realizes that he helped a man who owned the house that basically caused his hardship to intensify. These concepts show that the system is unfair and unbiased in who they crush to get ahead. While I wish the ending was different and I really wish I knew of the longer version before I read it! This is now one of my favorite books. Everyone should read it in their lifetime. I’m a sucker for politics and I appreciate that this book had subtle references to capitalism in the perfect metaphor that slaughter houses have with the proletariat but the ending could’ve been a little toned down! Side note: I also didn’t like the strike bit about the new laborers, the writing definitely seemed racist to me and I felt awful reading it. I think it enlightened to me how people can justify their actions of getting ahead even after they suffered the same way the people under them are, a true cog in the machine. Where Jurgis feels a sense of superiority over people who are equally oppressed. Instead of sympathy he falls into ego.
I like the way you have documented yourself, even if it was only by reading the introduction (which I don't know if you have limited to that or not.) What you have said about not having ever read any book that mixed fiction and non-fiction really surprised me. There are so many of them! - Zoe Wicomb: Still Life (I finished reading it a week ago, but I am not sure if it is already officially published or not) - John Berendt: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Bad - Charlotte Hobson: The Vanishing Futurist - Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall - William Burroughs: Naked Lunch, Junk - Isabel Allende: Paula - Nick Hornby: Fever Pitch - Elizabeth Wurtzel: Prozac Nation - Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (very philosophical this one) - Norman Mailer: The Death and the War (haven't read this one but it is one of my soon-to-be-read novels) and these are only the ones I was able to think about in five minutes top of my hat.
@@readingwithkayla941 You are very welcome. If you make searches for them, you may find something that interests you. If you ask me about my favourite one about all these, it would be Paula. I read it in Spanish, but Allende's translations into English are actually quite good. My least favourite one is Midnight in the Garden, as it is one of these cases in which I liked the movie a million times better. Both Kevin Spacey and Jude Law are amazing on it! Keep up the good reading and take care!
-Deborah Levy: Things I Don't Want to Know. I read it for a reading club and everybody loved it! - And the first one, and considered the best in the mixed genre, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. This I have tried twice to read it but I couldn't. There is something that it doesn't hook me to the story. I would have said that I would love it, but didn't manage to finish it.
I relate to your reasoning for wanting to read this novel, my high school history teacher had a day called “hotdog day” where we would read the stereotypical book excerpt and eat hot dogs as a class. Deeply gross environment and I’m not even sure what we were meant to learn from that. But, it introduced me to The Jungle, flash forward 4 years I finally picked up the book.
I started reading with the mindset of someone who grew up on a dairy cattle farm, I wanted to gain more appreciation for current practices by reading about the conditions that spurred legislation in the agricultural industry. While Sinclair did deliver stomach turning descriptions of slaughterhouses, I’d wager his exposé of how mistreated the American work force is in an inherently rigid system is equally is upsetting to stomach. I believe the parts with the greatest impact where learning that Ona was around 16 for their travel to American and experiencing thes plights as a child and when Jurgis realizes that he helped a man who owned the house that basically caused his hardship to intensify. These concepts show that the system is unfair and unbiased in who they crush to get ahead.
While I wish the ending was different and I really wish I knew of the longer version before I read it! This is now one of my favorite books. Everyone should read it in their lifetime. I’m a sucker for politics and I appreciate that this book had subtle references to capitalism in the perfect metaphor that slaughter houses have with the proletariat but the ending could’ve been a little toned down!
Side note: I also didn’t like the strike bit about the new laborers, the writing definitely seemed racist to me and I felt awful reading it. I think it enlightened to me how people can justify their actions of getting ahead even after they suffered the same way the people under them are, a true cog in the machine. Where Jurgis feels a sense of superiority over people who are equally oppressed. Instead of sympathy he falls into ego.
But you did a great job, how you connected the Racisim and Labour issues and the history...Just awesome
I like the way you have documented yourself, even if it was only by reading the introduction (which I don't know if you have limited to that or not.) What you have said about not having ever read any book that mixed fiction and non-fiction really surprised me. There are so many of them!
- Zoe Wicomb: Still Life (I finished reading it a week ago, but I am not sure if it is already officially published or not)
- John Berendt: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Bad
- Charlotte Hobson: The Vanishing Futurist
- Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall
- William Burroughs: Naked Lunch, Junk
- Isabel Allende: Paula
- Nick Hornby: Fever Pitch
- Elizabeth Wurtzel: Prozac Nation
- Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (very philosophical this one)
- Norman Mailer: The Death and the War (haven't read this one but it is one of my soon-to-be-read novels)
and these are only the ones I was able to think about in five minutes top of my hat.
Wow thanks for all these recommendations! I really appreciate it ☺️
@@readingwithkayla941 You are very welcome. If you make searches for them, you may find something that interests you. If you ask me about my favourite one about all these, it would be Paula. I read it in Spanish, but Allende's translations into English are actually quite good. My least favourite one is Midnight in the Garden, as it is one of these cases in which I liked the movie a million times better. Both Kevin Spacey and Jude Law are amazing on it! Keep up the good reading and take care!
-Deborah Levy: Things I Don't Want to Know. I read it for a reading club and everybody loved it!
- And the first one, and considered the best in the mixed genre, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. This I have tried twice to read it but I couldn't. There is something that it doesn't hook me to the story. I would have said that I would love it, but didn't manage to finish it.
It is the twenty-first century and people still eat meat :(