The Jungle

1. I can read.
2. I'm married to a beautiful woman.
3. My dad stuck around to help raise me.

So, in the contract I made for myself (because I'm employing myself as a writer), I am supposed to read a lot.  In turn, I've read a bunch of books lately and am now reading The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair.  I'm only on page four, but I can tell it's going to be sad, and I'm going to like it.  How can you not love a guy who loves his family and repeats the phrase, "I will work harder" when times get tough (can anyone else see the connection to Animal Farm?).

Anyway, the reason I felt like writing about this today, and not Bossypants, 1984, or Animal Farm (which I've also read recently) is that I went to the doctor today and brought the book to read while I waited.  The doctor noticed it and said that he read it in high school and didn't like it.  I said that I didn't expect everyone to like it; it certainly wasn't happy.  He then said that it wasn't that which he didn't like.  He didn't like that it was anti-capitalism.  He said it was taught to him as a book that changed America in the way we slaughter animals, but that it was really about an immigrant family who gets squashed by Capitalism.

Now, I can see where he's getting that.  In ways, I could come to that same conclusion.  I see it more as the book being about treating your workers like humans instead of like the cows and pigs that are being slaughtered.  I only said that I think today's Capitalism is better than it was back then and left it at that.  He said something about safety nets and we moved on.  ( I needed my heartburn medicine and wasn't going to lose it over a discussion on the importance of The Jungle)

Either way, I haven't really finished it yet anyway, so I dont' know as my opinion has any real weight.

Have a nice day.