JasonKoivu

Reading The Jungle will have you wringing your fists Upton Sinclair style.



Right up until I read it, The Jungle was one of those books I'd always heard of, but not heard about. I knew it was important, apparently, because everyone said so, but no one said why. (I guess I should have asked.) From what I gathered, it had something to do with the meat industry and its nefarious doings in the early 20th century, which led me to expect a dry, straight-forward, tell-all non-fiction revealing corruption, worker neglect, health violations, unsafe food preparation, and other important but not very exciting topics. That's probably why it took me about 20 years longer to get around to it than it should have.

Finally I read it. I was right. It did include all those topics, but it was fiction, and it was epic.

The Jungle is a story of immigrants coming to America to improve their lot in life and running headlong into the Chicago meat industry, which had very little interest in improving anyone's lot in life but the company owners and share holders. The lower you were down on the corporate food chain, the less the industry cared about you, and that includes the consumer, that unwitting public being fed a product almost completely devoid of nutrition.

Granted, Sinclair had an agenda - reveal industry corruption - and he sugarcoated it in a captivating story to entice the unwashed masses to give it a read. Not only do I not have a problem with that, I'm not embarrassed to say it's one of my favorite methods of swallowing these dry pills. I popped this one in my mouth and it went down smoother than expected. Then it made me sick to my stomach, but in the end I'm better off for having taken it.