I only really knew this book for shining a light on the meat industry, so I was surprised when it focused on an immigrant family. This was actually my second (and full) attempt at reading this book. I stopped last time a few chapters after the wedding. I'm kinda glad I gave it another shot, but damn, was it a dense read.
It was an engaging tragedy, though the constant struggles and deaths did start to wear on me. Things really slowed down near the latter half, which was also when Sinclair reminded you that this was a post slavery society, and just had to sprinkle in some anti-Black racism (Japanese women got a dash of it, too), which was frustrating cause there was some overlap between how poor and immigrant whites are treated in this country.
So much wasted potential! But anyway, the book gets really heavy into pro-socialism (makes sense, considering the book was originally serialized in a socialist magazine), but by then I just wanted it to be over.
I only really knew this book for shining a light on the meat industry, so I was surprised when it focused on an immigrant family. This was actually my second (and full) attempt at reading this book. I stopped last time a few chapters after the wedding. I'm kinda glad I gave it another shot, but damn, was it a dense read.
It was an engaging tragedy, though the constant struggles and deaths did start to wear on me. Things really slowed down near the latter half, which was also when Sinclair reminded you that this was a post slavery society, and just had to sprinkle in some anti-Black racism (Japanese women got a dash of it, too), which was frustrating cause there was some overlap between how poor and immigrant whites are treated in this country.
So much wasted potential! But anyway, the book gets really heavy into pro-socialism (makes sense, considering the book was originally serialized in a socialist magazine), but by then I just wanted it to be over.