Oil! | Upton Sinclair | Generally entertaining

Oil! | Upton Sinclair | An excellent written book by a world famous author.

books:

Oil!

	Oil! Upton Sinclair Penguin (Non-Classics), 2007 - 560 pages average customer review:based on 39 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Generally entertaining

Unlike Sinclair's best-known novel, "The Jungle," with its bleak story and gloomy characters, "Oil!" is a fast-paced, lively and colorful story. Although Sinclair uses it to preach his political views, it is nevertheless a good piece of literature and an interesting historical testimony to the era in which it was written. Another striking thing is how Sinclair's descriptions of corporate manipulations tend to mirror very recent events. Interesting also is that Sinclair uses one of the oldest cliches in American literature, the coming-of-age story, as the vehicle for this epic; at the same time, there are indications that Sinclair seems to mock this manner of story-telling - from the main character's rather silly nick-name, "Bunny" to his perennial inability to make up his mind about where he wants to go with his life, i.e. he never really 'comes of age.' Other reviewers have noted Sinclair's apparently naive promotion of socialism/communism/the Bolsheviks, which is a valid criticism, although to me it seemed more a case of the author throwing out ideas to provoke readers into thinking rather than an attempt to persuade them. In this sense, his use of the family of a wealthy California oil baron as the main protagonists is quite telling: although Sinclair does take the opportunity to highlight the hypocrisy and greed of the moneyed classes, he also makes a genuine attempt to portray them as real people rather than just grotesque caricatures. I also noticed that many of his characterizations of the working class/poor are often less than flattering. Regardless, this is a really entertaining novel, probably Sinclair's best.

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An excellent written book by a world famous author.

One of my favorite books of all times. Upton Sinclair is a literary master. The book is intense, and moves through all its nearly 600 pages. It seems that the series Dallas had its origins in this old book. The characters and events are all believable. I highly recommend reading this book and learning about early California oil days.

A Good Historical Novel

If one can look through the Muckraking Sinclair is doing, the book paints a detailed portrait of the oil industry, movie industry and overall life in southern California in the 1920's.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8

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