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    The Jungle
    The Jungle
    The Jungle
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Jungle

    Written by Upton Sinclair

    Narrated by Paul Boehmer

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    About this audiobook

    In this powerful book, we enter the world of Jurgis Rudkus, a young Lithuanian immigrant who arrives in America fired with dreams of wealth, freedom, and opportunity. And we discover the astonishing truth about "packingtown," the busy, flourishing, filthy Chicago stockyards, where New World visions perish in a jungle of human suffering.

    Upton Sinclair, master of the "muckraking" novel, here explores the workingman's lot at the turn of the century: the backbreaking labor, the injustices of "wage slavery," and the bewildering chaos of urban life. The Jungle, a story so shocking that it launched a government investigation, re-creates this startling chapter of our history in unflinching detail. Always a vigorous champion of political reform, Sinclair is also a gripping storyteller, and his 1906 novel stands as one of the most important-and moving-works in the literature of social change.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJan 12, 2009
    ISBN9781400180400
    Author

    Upton Sinclair

    Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, activist, and politician whose novel The Jungle (1906) led to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Born into an impoverished family in Baltimore, Maryland, Sinclair entered City College of New York five days before his fourteenth birthday. He wrote dime novels and articles for pulp magazines to pay for his tuition, and continued his writing career as a graduate student at Columbia University. To research The Jungle, he spent seven weeks working undercover in Chicago’s meatpacking plants. The book received great critical and commercial success, and Sinclair used the proceeds to start a utopian community in New Jersey. In 1915, he moved to California, where he founded the state’s ACLU chapter and became an influential political figure, running for governor as the Democratic nominee in 1934. Sinclair wrote close to one hundred books during his lifetime, including Oil! (1927), the inspiration for the 2007 movie There Will Be Blood; Boston (1928), a documentary novel revolving around the Sacco and Vanzetti case; The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism, and the eleven novels in Pulitzer Prize–winning Lanny Budd series.

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    Reviews for The Jungle

    4/5

    84 ratings63 reviews

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    • 2/5
      It is impossible for me to review this without appearing to be pissy. The work itself is barely literary. The Jungle explores and illustrates the conditions of the meatpacking industry. Its presence stirred outcry which led to much needed reforms. Despite the heroics of tackling the Beef Trust, Upton Sinclair saw little need in the actual artful. The protagonist exists only to conjoin the various pieces of reportage. There isn't much emotional depth afforded, the characters' motivations often appear skeptical. I was left shaking my head on many a turn, especially towards the end where entire speeches from the American Socialist party compete with esoteric findings of left-leaning social scientists from the era (around 1905).

      Despite these shortcomings as a novel, the opening half is often harrowing. Graphic descriptions of hellish work conditions, poor food quality and lack of social safety net reached towards a very personal conclusion: I am EVER so grateful that I didn't live 110 years ago and was forced to compete economically under those conditions.
    • 4/5
      Despite the anticlimactic lecture on the virtues of socialism, I found this story to be very compelling after the first 50 pages. Once I accepted that everything bad is going to happen to this family, the reading became more enjoyable. Even though I don't eat meat anyway, I didn't really find the meat factory narrative to be too surprising. The conditions were horrible to be sure, but I was more appalled at the amount of corruption and lack of help these people had in Chicago. I wished that Sinclair would have spent more time wrapping up the family drama and give that story some closure instead of spending the end of the book learning about socialism and plugging the socialist newspaper that published the serial story in the first place.
    • 2/5
      Somewhat spoilery:
      There is nothing worse than getting through an entire book to suddenly find the character have an epiphany that is like "And then she found Jesus, and all her problems were solved." For this book, replace Jesus with the Socialist party.

      The basic outline is this: Interesting first chapter, misfortune, misfortune, misfortune, hope?, worse misfortune, hope?, worse misfortune, misfortune, and then 35 pages of sudden political propaganda...

      The characterization was good, so I was really hoping to enjoy this story. I cared for the characters and felt that they were real. Yet the structure of the plot is so repetitive and predictable that it easily slid into the ridiculous. It's as if Sinclair asked himself how bad could he possibly make the lives of the main characters before he lost his audience, and then tried to tip-toe over the line anyways.

      I was considering giving this novel a three, until I got to the last thirty pages, which is so drawn out and unnecessarily preachy that I had to push myself to finish this book. I only made it because I had to write a paper regarding the ending specifically. I felt as if my intelligence was insulted by this ending.

      It's an okay read, worth it only for the historical details concerning the life of the laborer, and the grossness of the meat-packing industry. But consider yourself warned.
    • 3/5
      This is a shocking story about the meat packing industry. The things that ended up in the meat. It was also hard to hear what the workers went through and how this family struggled just to survive. How their food was filled with nasty things, how people swindled them. It was a hard life back then for immigrants. Very good book to learn a little bit about America's history.
    • 4/5
      This is a very interesting book that covers the meat packing industry in Chicago, the political corruption, and the evils of capitalism. The story revolves around the charcter of Jurgis who is a Lithuanian imigrant. He and his family become used and largely destroyed by the capitalist system of industrialism. The story ends with a hopeful opinion that socialism would overcome and improve the life of the working class. The detail provided by the author is enlightening but the naive belief in socialism is unfounded, although politcal reform was definitely needed.
    • 4/5
      A good book which inspired a nation to take a closer look at meat packaging plants. However, it did get a little to preachy about Socialism at times for my tastes.
    • 5/5
      This book could be called the prequel to Fast Food Nation. Written in 1906 it is ammazing to see how the poor and uneducated are used for fodder by the beef trust. One feels the struggles of Jurgis and his family. This is trily a classic that holds the reader even today.
    • 3/5
      Well, second time to read the book, June 2016, first time was July 2010. 1001 reference book states "this is not the first muckraking novel, but one of the most influential novels. It was used politically by Roosevelt to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act. It states that this book is based on real incidents in 1904 stockyard worker's strike. It is a manifesto for social change." In this book, the United States is not the place for the immigrant. It is the tale of Jurgis Rudkus, an immigrant from Lithuania. When you read this stuff, you have to wonder why anyone would leave their homeland. This is a story of one failed dream after another. The other presents socialism as the beacon of hope. Perhaps, this book was a wake up call to the democrats and republican parties. I don't know but according to this book, the socialist made great strides. Anyway, I still dislike this book. I hate that business was so awful to people and I know that is the very reason's unions and socialism had such surges as they did but I just hate that people would be so greedy. But mostly, I dislike this book because it is such a lot of preaching. The story of the man and his family, if told in true Dickensian fashion, would have made a great story. I listened to the audio the second time and it was read well and made a good alternative to reading it for a second time.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      The Jungle was a reread for me. The story was as bleak as I remember. Jurgis Rudkus sees his family abused, exploited and ripped apart by the Stockyards of Chicago in the early 1900s. The story details their lives and tragedies after they immigrate to the US from Lithuania.Upton Sinclair’s description of the unsanitary conditions of the meat-packers assisted in passage of both the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Beef Inspection Act, although the conditions of the packing plants were only a brief mention in the novel. Sinclair’s primary purpose was to publicize the working conditions, “wage slavery,” and advocate for socialism. Sinclair’s quote, included in Robert B. Downs’ Afterword of the Signet Classic 1960 edition, is an apt description of what happened instead, “I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”This is a classic American novel that should be read. Be aware that there are racial epithets and prejudice included in the novel.
    • 3/5
      OMG, Upton Sinclair, preachy much?

      It's not the uncomfortably vivid depictions of the meatpacking industry at the turn of the last century. It's not the series of tragedies, as if the author had a checklist to work through and a determination to mark off every box. It's not even the Socialist propaganda of the last few chapters, when no one speaks except to explain the coming revolution.

      Rather, it's the litanies against drinking; the vilification of "green negroes" too stupid and savage to avoid the temptations of alcohol and the flesh; the women who sink into poverty, prostitution and drug abuse. Even more than that, it's the characters who have no life or will of their own, but who merely move wherever Sinclair chooses to place them. As the book goes on, his manipulation of his characters becomes more obvious, until Jurgis's motivations cease to make sense. In the latter half of the book, Sinclair simply herds him through a series of tableaux that end in a Socialist awakening. By the end, Jurgis has all but lost his voice. In the last chapter, he doesn't speak at all - just listens to Sinclair's mouthpieces and thinks he might like to talk to a girl, but never does.

      That said, I recognize the sociocultural and historical importance of The Jungle, and I'm not unsympathetic to its message. I only wish Sinclair had found a way to convey that message through his characters, without resorting to editorial- and sermonizing.
    • 5/5
      I would recommend this classic as a “must read”…while relentlessly depressing at times it gave me a very new appreciation for the immigrants of the early 1900s, including my great grandparents. There are a few chapters I felt were odd and did not fit the story, the first chapter is long (almost an hour) and describes one single scene. Thankfully the rest of the book moves at a much quicker pace. The final chapters are riddled with long narratives about socialism which I found boring and took away from the story and characters. But regardless, it was a fantastic book. I work in a hog slaughtering facility so I found the description of the packing houses very interesting. And thankfully I can attest that our meat is produced safely and cleanly. Thank God things have changed drastically from 1905.
    • 3/5
      At the turn of the 20th century, muckraking was a new term for journalists who sought out corruption with the intent to expose. And there was a lot to be found. Most of their contributions have been forgotten, or go unnoticed. Time has passed and their words and works have stopped being relevant. Which is possibly what makes The Jungle so very special. On one level it is simply the story of an immigrant family trying to survive in a new country where they know nothing of the environment, the language, the customs, or the political and financial situations. All they know is they want a better life, a fuller life. Their innocence is heartbreaking as you follow these fictional characters along a path that was all too real for immigrants in Chicago at the time. On another level, this novel actually changed something, not necessarily what the author intended, with his clear and hammering message for socialism near the end. But it managed to be part of the cause of the forming of stricter regulations on food production. It got to people. In fact I think in some ways it still gets to people. And that is journalism and writing at its finest. Upton Sinclair managed to reveal the harsh and horrible realities of factories in the early 1900's, while immortalizing the strength and determination of men, women, and children who would and did do anything to survive in the some of the most disgusting and demeaning conditions imaginable.
    • 5/5
      I can just imagine the furore this book caused when it came out. The descriptions of the conditions at the meat packing plants in Chicago, which Sinclair knew from having gone undercover, were horrendous. As a result of this book the forerunner to the Food and Drugs Act was passed. At least as terrible as how meat was processed was how horribly the workers were treated. There was no such thing as health and safety or worker's compensation. If someone didn't turn up for work there were 100 more people to take their place. Wages were low and people went into debt to live in squalor. Children either worked in the meat packing plants or were sent out to sell papers. Women who had given birth had to go right back to work or lose their job. The protagonist lost everything, tried crime and strike breaking, and finally discovered socialism. Now, the promises and schemes the socialists made seem naive but to millions of the poor it must have seen like a beacon of light.
    • 5/5
      meticulously researched “fiction” about a Lithuanian family who immigrates to Chicago around 1900 and ends up working in the filthy meatpacking plants in the Yards. this is a hugely important book in the history of many movements including child labor, food safety, social justice, Socialism, labor unions, workers’ rights… and is an engaging, sympathetic story about one man, on top of it all. I keep coming back to it.
    • 4/5
      I don't understand why this book is described as an examination of the meatpacking industry in the early days of the 20th century. Yes, it has graphic details of the slaughterhouses in Chicago, but this clearly is the story of the hard life of an immigrant family newly arrived in America and how the odds are stacked against them.
    • 4/5
      The Jungle tells the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who has come to the United States with his extended family to find work. When he finds himself in Chicago, he and his family get work in the Chicago Stockyards. They immediately begin to struggle to make ends meet. Faced with unfair labor practices, unsafe working conditions, and questionable treatment from con men, Jurgis works harder and harder to support the family. But hard work is not enough to overcome the conditions that Jurgis and his family face.I found myself on the edge of my seat as I read this book. The descriptions of the conditions faced by Jurgis and his family were appalling. Each time I thought that they had finally caught a break, another tragedy befell the family. Sinclair provides insight into the meat packing industry, labor practices, Chicago politics and socialism as Jurgis searches for a way to overcome the system. The story was most effective when this historical background was woven with the story of Jurgis and his family. However, near the end of the book, Sinclair began to rely more on straight description, as Jurgis observed the workings of the Socialist party. Despite a rather abrupt ending, Sinclair's style was very effective in bringing to light the conditions of the times.
    • 4/5
      Welp, that was cheerful.The story follows an immigrant man and his family trying to survive in the packing district of turn-of-the-century Chicago, and details the corruption and filth of the packing companies and the devastating lives the workers led. Fascinating and horrible. And important. And not, horrifyingly, without certain relevancies today. My one quibble: the ending gets bogged down in a description of socialism and then ends much too abruptly. Otherwise, a solid - if not happy - read.
    • 1/5
      It was well written and has a hidden point, however it was the most boring and highly depressing book i have ever read. i'm glad that i read it, but i will not be reading it again or recommending it to others.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. I was a bit apprehensive about the narration as in some places it takes on "Hawthorne-ish" type of over narration, but as I got a little further into The Jungle I realized that there was a point behind it other than the author wanting to be a showy wordsmith. Delving further into the book Mr. Sinclair becomes a master at bringing one into the brutality, inhumanity, and unsanitary conditions of the stockyards, but also the people who are forced by life's conditions to work there. The story focuses on one Lithunanian family and the trials that they endure trying to get along in America. I was not sure which I felt more, the agonizing defeat that this family must have felt in the condition that they were thrown into, or the strong desire I have to become vegetarian. I hope that this book will be as widely read in the next 100 years as it has been for the last 100 years.
    • 4/5
      This one might make you sick - from head to toe. Not only are the stories agonizing, but the descriptions of the meat-packing industry might make you want to vomit. Read it alongside Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser if you're trying to compare just how far (very little it seems) our food industry has come in the last 100+ years.
    • 3/5
      It's ironic that Sinclair's intention in writing "The Jungle", dedicated "To the Workingmen of America", was to shine a light on the difficult conditions of the proletarian and advance the cause of socialism. However, what really shocked Americans was not the oppression their fellow man was suffering to put meat on their plates, but what might be IN the meat on their plates. For as Jane Jacobs says in the introduction, this meant "telling about the revolting ingredients packed into America's breakfast sausages and pickled meats: flesh from tubercular cattle and hogs with cholera, floor sweepings, hapless rats, and unsalubrious chemicals to render the results cosmetically acceptable."Yum.It's certainly an important book, caused an uproar when it was published in 1906, and led to meat-packing regulations, but as fiction it's mediocre.Quotes:On marriage:"Marriage and prostitution were two sides of one shield, the predatory man's exploitation of the sex-pleasure. The difference between them was a difference of class. If a woman had money she might dictate her own terms: equality, a life-contract, and the legitimacy - that is, the property rights - of her children. If she had no money, she was a proletarian, and sold herself for an existence."On religion:"Government oppressed the body of the wage-slave, but Religion oppressed his mind, and poisoned the stream of progress at its source. The workingman was to fix his hopes upon a future life, while his pockets were picked in this one; he was brought up to frugality, humility, obedience, - in short to al the pseudo-virtues of capitalism.""I have no doubt that in a hundred years the Vatican will be denying that it ever opposed Socialism, just as at present it denies that it ever tortured Galileo."
    • 5/5
      Intense. Had to have a drink on hand whenever reading this to stomach the misery and greed. A Lithuanian family, hoping for a life less oppressed, immigrates to America and finds their way to Chicago's stockyards at the turn of the last century only to be cruelly tricked into indentured servitude in the meat packing industry. Their daily struggle to counter starvation, sickness, exhaustion, and homelessness is heartrending. The reader experiences the foul and brutal practices of the meat industry; the utter lack of a social safety net for anyone or basic infrastructure in the workingman's neighborhoods; the corruption of the industries, the city officials, and the political machine - and their collusion; the extensive world of crime, gambling, and prostitution (women habitually held hostage and doped); and the tenuous hope of relief through union organization and the socialist revolution. Sickening to think that these situations and conditions still exist in the world. Come the fuck on humanity.
    • 3/5
      I'm going to stick with a solid 3-star rating for this book because overall, I liked it. There were some parts that I really liked and much that I didn't care for. This book really was a rollercoaster ride (albeit a depressing one) of emotions and plot twists. Following Jurgis through his life in Chicago (and elsewhere) was often a challenge but always exciting. Funnily, I didn't like Jurgis as an immigrant worker, criminal, political muscle, union worker, union detractor, or socialist... the only time I had respect for the main character was when he was a hobo; travelling the country.
    • 2/5
      I don't generally review the "classic" titles I read, because who the hell am I? But I wanted to tackle this one. Bear in mind that I seldom, if ever, enjoy a novel with a Message. The Jungle, of course, is the famous muckraking novel that brought the horrific conditions of the Chicago stockyards to the public eye. Good for it.The protagonist is Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who personally faces every possible indignity that a worker could suffer under capitalism. The parade of horribles actually became funny after awhile: of course one of his relatives turns to whoring. Of course another is eaten by rats. Jurgis and the other characters are so thinly drawn, and the episodes so clearly crafted to make a point, that I felt no emotional involvement, not even outrage. Granted, if the book were telling me something I didn't already know, the outrage factor might have come into play, but I was reading it as a novel, not a report.I have never read a book that more clearly called out for one more chapter. The book ends with Jurgis, homeless, hungry and freezing, stumbling into a socialist meeting. He is an instant convert to the cause and is taken in by the kindly socialist owner of a hotel. The last 20 pages or so consist of a group of men debating various points of socialist theory, and Jurgis disappears from the narrative completely. But here's my ending, and it absolutely fits with the rhythm of the book. Throughout the novel, Jurgis plugs away against adversity and always thinks he has finally caught a break. Then the other shoe drops and life sucks once again. So, he falls in with these nice socialists and instead of a worldwide worker's revolution he encounters: Terror. Torture. The Gulags. Fooled again!
    • 5/5
      I am so glad that I have read this book... but what a hard journey it was. I am a Health and Safety Professional and this book underscored why I am doing what I do for a living. The horrible conditions (not to mention the food quality and ethics issues (which fit right in to my Vegetarian leanings!!))... the horrible abuse of human labor for the sake of enriching the already too rich. A very eye-opening book. I wasn't sure I would be able to make it through to be honest. It was just very hard to read. Death, suffering, sadness, hopelessness. the book is a brilliant picture of the times - you can't not be changed by reading and listening to your heart as you read it. I plan to read it again someday... which is funny because I wasn't sure if I could finish it! But once I got past the horror, the message of the book rung true.
    • 1/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      Great classic novel about the struggle of European emigrants in the meat processing industry of early 20th century Chicago.
    • 5/5
      This book is positively amazing- I was about ready to become a Socialist at the end. Basically what we have is the incredible story of what America was doing to its immigrants, and it wasn't pretty. Yes, the meat packing stuff was gross, but it wasn't even the most disturbing part (plus it makes great quotation material when you want to annoy people at dinner). I was most upset about the saga of how the family was starved out of their house. We need to see what corperate America was doing to immigrant Americans (and undoubtably still is).
    • 5/5
      I decided to read this as one of those books I have heard of as classics, but I had never read. I anticipated that these books would be things to wade through. I could not have been more surprised. I didn't want to put it down. It was fascinating and if I had not known when it was written, I would have thought it was contemporary. I did think it ended rather abruptly, but I couldn't put it down.