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The Jungle : The Uncensored Original Edition

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1884365302

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Recommended By

Emily S..

Planning on Reading

Rachel Carlson.

Book Details

Written by Upton Sinclair, Kathleen De Grave, and Earl Lee.
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Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)

For nearly a century, the original version of Upton Sinclair's classic novel has remained almost entirely unknown. When it was published in serial form in 1905, it was a full third longer than the censored, commercial edition published in book form the following year. That expurgated commercial edition edited out much of the ethnic flavor of the original, as well as some of the goriest descriptions of the meat-packing industry and much of Sinclair's most pointed social and political commentary. The text of this new edition is as it appeared in the original uncensored edition of 1905. It contains the full 36 chapters as originally published, rather than the 31 of the expurgated edition. A new foreword describes the discovery in the 1980s of the original edition and its subsequent suppression, and a new introduction places the novel in historical context by explaining the pattern of censorship in the shorter commercial edition.

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Emily S. thinks this book is Worth Reading.

This book had been recommended to me many times over the years by people who indicated to me that it was about the horrors of the meat packing industry. They stressed terrible conditions for animals, and one advocate even boasted that this book might well turn me into a vegetarian.

There are indeed awful descriptions of the conditions in meat plants, which are stomach-turning at times. More horrific to me, however, were the descriptions of the living conditions of the workers. In the beginning, I really felt for Jurgis and Ona and their extended family. They were working hard and attempting to make it as they had been led to believe they might.

Throughout the course of the novel, however, I began to feel less sympathetic for them. Without question their lives were difficult, but they made them more so by the choices they made; Jurgis takes up drinking, Ona makes some poor choices that lead to Jurgis making even more terrible decisions...

In the end, the book did not make me a vegetarian, or a socialist, which is I think more the intention of the author. Still, it's well written, thoughtful, and a great piece of writing that highlights the thinking at the time about turn of the century problems. I definitely think it's worth reading.

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