Upton Sinclair

[Frank Little]

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[Jimmie Higgins]

I've only read "The Jungle", "Jimmie Higgins" and "Oil!" and one I can't remember the name of that was about the future.

"The Jungle" is the best one I read - I like his depiction of the lives of immigrants in Chicago and of course really vivid horrors of their lives. "Jimmie Higgins" was hard to get through even though the chapter titles were really intriguing "Jimmie Higgins meets the Bolsheviks" was one I think.

He's not that great of a writer, but that doesn't bother me too much because I also read a lot of magizine fiction from the 50s and 60s - kind of pulpy sci-fi stuff of the "Twilight Zone" mold - and so I don't really mind the somewhat clumsy language and the chapters where nothing happens that easily could have been cut out.

He was a strange guy - he ran for Governor of California during the depression; he was probably the most famous socialist in the US other than Eugene Debs; he had odd sometimes right-wing political positions despite being overall a socialist in the early years.

I really enjoyed this satire called "U.S." (as in Upton Sinclair) by Chris Bachelder which is sort of about the difference between attitudes at the turn of the 20th century and attitudes at the end of the Century (i.e. in the US - utopian and militant in the early decades and defeated and cynical from the 80s on). The plot is that Sinclair is repeatedly brought back from the dead and then he writes modern muck-raking novels (like "Pharmaceutical!" as a modern version of "Oil!") only to be repeatedly assassinated by right-wing thugs. Sinclair is an object of ridicule for the entire book - a walking anachronism - but he is also presented as really earnest and sincere and the attitude of the book seems to mock him and respect him at the same time. Anyway it's a very short and funny book - if you like Vonnegut or satire, I'd recommend it.

[YeOldeCommuniste]

Oh, I loved The Jungle. It made me not want to eat meat for a while because of the gruesome descriptions of the meat packing industry, but it was a great book.

[Kléber]

What do you all think about his dispute with Eisenstein

[Jimmie Higgins]

What do you all think about his dispute with EisensteinHa, what was the dispute?

[Kléber]

Sinclair basically stole Eisenstein's footage for ¡Que Viva México! and cut him off allegedly because Eisenstein took too long to finish filming. Stalin also questioned the project and mused that Eisenstein might be using the film as a cover to form conspiratorial links abroad.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Sinclair basically stole Eisenstein's footage for ¡Que Viva México! and cut him off allegedly because Eisenstein took too long to finish filming. Stalin also questioned the project and mused that Eisenstein might be using the film as a cover to form conspiratorial links abroad.Interesting. Everything I read about Sinclair just makes him seem more and more eccentric.

This story is also funny to me because I in turn stole the VHS copy of "Que Viva Mexico" from a video store I used to work at. I also stole "Strike!" and "Soy Cuba" because the store was converting to all DVD and was going to sell these.