Oil! by Upton Sinclair
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Book Reviews of Oil!
Book Review: Golden Oldie!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a gift for my husband. He is very much enjoying the book!Book Review: Very different from the loosely adapted film
Summary: 4 Stars
I am sure that many people have compared _Oil_ with "There Will Be Blood," the film loosely based on the novel. Each is excellent in its own way. _Oil_ is a well written, stirring novel, with richly developed and complex characters. The film's screen writer chooses to tell how greed thoroughly warps and corrupts a self-made oil barren. The oil man in the book, J. Arnold Ross, Sr., is a far more complicated man. Although a "greedy capitalist" as is the entire capitalist system according to the author, Upton Sinclair, Ross, Sr. is often a compassionate man. He agrees to post bail for friends of his son's imprisoned for holding "communist inspired meetings" calling for abolishing the enslavement and exploitation of working men by the capitalist system. Ross Sr. sympathizes with some of the wage demands of his striking workers, but is stymied in his support of them for fear of ostracism from a corporate federation to which he belongs.
Ross, Jr., nicknamed Bunny in the novel, is a sensitive, intelligent, and well educated young man. While Bunny loves and admires his father and is the heir to Ross Sr.'s millions, Bunny works against what his father believes, and heartily sympathizes with the ideals of his "Bolshevik" friends. Bunny's sister, Bertie, firmly against and embarrassed by her brother's socialist activities, believes that his behavior is preventing her being invited to join the monied class to which she feels entitled.
Bunny, from childhood on, becomes close friends with Paul Watkins, one of the sons of the family from whom Ross Sr. cheaply bought the land from which his oil wells were drilled. Paul, a true believer in the radical movement, is one of the most important influences in Bunny's life. Bunny becomes involved with Vee, a movie starlet, who, like his sister, is also against Bunny's socialist leanings. Vernon Roscoe, Ross Sr's partner and perhaps the most corrupt character in the book, believes in industry working closely with and even bribing government officials, which Vernon believes is for the benefit of all.
The last section of the novel, where Bunny becomes particularly close with Rachel Menzies, a Jewish girl who shares much of Bunny's beliefs, is fast paced and engrossing, as is much of the book. One of the only negative aspects of the book is the author's and some of its characters' naive belief that Soviet Russia held promise as a model for a worker's state. This can be forgiven because the book ends in the 1920's before many of the Soviet Union's failings, particularly under Stalin, were uncovered. Although the novel ends tragically, there is some promise held out for a better and fairer world for the members of the working class.
Book Review: Book A Dialogue, Movie a Monologue
Summary: 4 Stars
"Oil!" can barely be said to be the basis of the movie "There Will be Blood." The movie is a new millennium monologue representation of a dialogue showing the struggle of two classes dramatized in the book. In "Oil!" the oil man's son is the vehicle for the struggle of ideas between his capitalist father and his worker-oriented union organizer friend, Paul. In a perfect caricature of present-day society, the movie entirely omits the working-class side of the debate which in the book is viewed through the eyes of the oil man's son. In a world where huge media corporations now dominate the worldwide flow of ideas, a world from which ideas favorable to the working person are entirely absent, the movie "There Will be Blood" takes a book which is about a dialogue between two classes and turns it into a monologue. In other words, the movie ripped out the guts of the book.
The really interesting questions in the book were entirely omitted such as:
In the book the father struggling against the huge oil companies---reflecting the fight of the medium and small business person to survive against huge corporate interests.
Most importantly, the son being friends with Paul, the radical labor organizer. This friendship and the pull of Paul's ideas places the "young oil prince" in a severe conflict with the circumstances of his birth, and that is the basic conflict of the book--entirely missing not only from the movie but from "mainstream" media. If you've seen the movie, the book becomes particularly interesting so you can see what is being withheld from you.
If you do decide to read the book, the prose is in an older historical style, not the style that flows from computers, so be ready to adjust to a different style. Also, there are some long paragraphs about how wooden oil derricks are constructed, and I recommend that you skip these unless you have some tremendous interest in wooden oil derricks of the past.
Book Review: From Oil in the 1920s to Washington and Wall Street Today
Summary: 4 Stars
Though set in the California oil fields of the 1920s, the great Upton Sinclair's classic "Oil!" is as relevant and meaningful(aka "alarming" and "frightening")today as it was when it was written more than 80 years ago.
The characters are great, well written and well developed, coming off the pages in living technicolor. You get to know these people, care about some, empathize with few and dispise others.
But the issue, the real isue, is the buying of government and greed. Greed with a capital "G."
Read with John Grisham's latest, "The Appeal," (Judicial "justice" being bought and paid for in Mississippi--fiction there, truth in Alabama and all states where supreme court judges are elected), and looking at the tremendously obscene amounts of money spent on judicial, congressional and legislative races, there is enough to seriously raise questions about the fairness and openness of our government, national, state and local.
As for the greed part, look no further than Wall Street as it was when this book was written 80 years ago and as it is today.
The fact that 80 years have passed since this book was written sweetens the medicine as it goes down..but the poision is still there and it still goes down...
The more things change, the more they remain the same...
Book Review: Book/film
Summary: 4 Stars
It must be pointed out that the film-makers of There Will Be Blood were INSPIRED by the book, they didn't suggest that the film was actually BASED on the book, therefore the movie and novel are different. I haven't as yet, seen the movie , but I did enjoy the novel, and I'm glad to see it is in print.
Sinclair can tell a good story, even though he didn't write books just to tell a story.
H G Wells was another one of those "message to spread" writers, denouncing those who thought of a novel as a mere form relaxation, or just an entertainment. A lot of his "message/topical novels are now unread. (In fact, it is mostly his entertainments, like the science fiction tales, that are read/in print today).
The same may apply to Sinclair, but even despite of a tendency to "lecture" he can still tell a good story, while concurrently giving the capitalists a bashing,(one of his favorite themes).