Oil! | Upton Sinclair | Great Story

Oil! | Upton Sinclair | First draft of journalism

books:

Oil!

	Oil! Upton Sinclair Penguin (Non-Classics), 2007 - 560 pages average customer review:based on 33 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

In Oil! Upton Sinclair fashioned a novel out of the oil scandals of the Harding administration, providing in the process a detailed picture of the development of the oil industry in Southern California. Bribery of public officials, class warfare, and international rivalry over oil production are the context for Sinclair's story of a genial independent oil developer and his son, whose sympathy with the oilfield workers and socialist organizers fuels a running debate with his father. Senators, small investors, oil magnates, a Hollywood film star, and a crusading evangelist people the pages of this lively novel.

for more information click here

Great Story - Easy to Read

After the first chapter this book takes off. The story chronicles the tale of a father and son. Or is it the story of oil development in Southern California, or perhaps a the story which pits labor vs. business? Well it is all of that and much more. His tale is finely woven with elements from early parts of the story coming back which wraps the story very tightly. This authors style reminds me very much of James Michener. For me when a story is good I am able to imagine the actors that would portray the parts. In this story I imagined Brian Denehy as the father and Matt Dillon as the son. To keep the story fictitious the author uses "Angel City" and vicinity as the setting, but you easily convert all of Southern California in your mind. Since the story is very much about a father and son relationship, I see this a very male oriented book. But there are also themes of greed, love, jealousy, and alturisum. It will now be interesting to see the movie. UPDATE: I saw the movie and it didn't even come close in doing justice to the book, the book is soooooo much better.

for more information click here

First draft of journalism

Deep in this cautionary tail of oil and America, capitalism and communism, money and morals, the oil magnate's son blurts out the prescient words that echo in the midst of the oil crises of 2008: "Dad, there's something vitally wrong with the oil industry" (p. 449 of this edition).

Indeed there was, and is, and is to come (one feels, midway through 2008, only partway down a steep and dangerous slide from prosperity).

Upton Sinclair crafted this classic epic in 1927, taking a panoramic view of the previous 25 years through the lives of J. Arnold Ross, the elder, who progressed from buggy driver to business driver and from Jim to James A. to J. Arnold as the weight of his name kept pace with the weight of his money, and his son "Bunny", who started his life weighted down by money and spends his adolescence and young adulthood digging out from under it. Sinclair transcends simple muckrakery with his scope and skill, and ends up crafting a story with the look and feel of an extended thread of War and Peace (Penguin Classics, Deluxe Edition). The political and social criticism consistently stings, even in these enlightened, modern, progressive days a century later.

Interestingly and amazingly, I was personally privileged to find just how sharply Sinclair's pen had drawn the picture. Early in the book, the century, and the senior Ross's oil career, the boom and bust pattern of the oil industry was characterized by consortium of neighbors bonding together to offer their property for lease to the "oil man". Sinclair writes of the way greed would start to tug at the hearts of neighbor, friend, and relative, pulling apart the legal and cultural and personal relationships, turning friend against friend, and blasting apart the group. The oil man would refuse to deal with the individual pieces of property, taking his offer offer literally across the street. The greed of a few (and their lawyers) would leave all these people's middle-class dreams of wealth shattered (Sinclair poignantly has Bunny revisit the scene of this description at the very end of the book and observe the dusty dream, a fading and never-used guide to the etiquette of the wealthy still given place of honor on the small table in the dingy dining room).

Just two days after reading this part of the book, I talked to my parents who still own 50 of the 160-acre farm where I grew up in rural Appalachia in the far western tip of Maryland. Soaring energy prices and recent successful natural gas drilling in the mountain ranges in nearby Pennsylvania had reinvigorated a neighborhood consortium formed 30 years ago to pool the mineral rights for sale to the coal companies then interested. They had just gotten back from attending a meeting with a modern "oil man," who offered less than some thought they deserved; some argued for solidarity, others threatened legal intervention, and tried to break the agreement. Neighbor stood against neighbor, and relationships forged between friend and blood, sometimes over centuries on land owned in this rural isolated place, were torn apart. I listened in amazement as I told my parents that Sinclair had written the script of the meeting they attended nearly word for word 100 years ago.

So Oil! Is worthy of the punctuation, and remains a vital and interesting book in light of 2008's events--and the much-honored movie "There Will be Blood" for which the book served as the "inspiration." This edtiion is includes a picture of Daniel Day-Lewis as the senior Ross, and will undoubtedly draw many readers to the story who might not otherwise have come--indeed, I began reading for this reason, but found the story strong enough and different enough to stand on its own. And indeed, while Sinclair does provide the main characters and the basic beginnings of the plot, about one third of the way through the book the movie diverges far from the book. The older brother who tips off Daniel Day-Lewis to his richest oil find on the dirt-poor family ranch, practically disappears from the movie, while in the book he becomes a central figure in the rest of the book. And the denouement of the movie is from the script and not the book, although it remains true to character.

The movie is a great classic and worthy of its Academy Award honors this year, one of those epic movies that draws eyes to the screen, even when its characters and plots are hard to like and watch. It fits in the same class, if not quite at the same level, as "Citizen Kane."

The book, as well, is nearly classic, and fits in the same class, if not quite at the same level, as War and Peace (Penguin Classics, Deluxe Edition). Sinclair's obvious disdain for capitalism and naive trust of incipient Communism and socialism draws Sinclair's writing below classic level and makes "Oil!" more of a historical piece than a creditable novel. Still, his sharp eye for accurate detail punctures stuffed shirts and while historical reads today as a first draft of journalism.

Don't bypass "Oil!" because of its differences from "There will be Blood." And don't discredit the movie because it veers so far from the book. They stand strong, alone.

for more information click here

Oil!

My only "issue" was the type on the pages. It was a gift for my father and he said he thought it probably looked that way because it was a copy of the original printing. That's possible, but we couldn't find that stated anywhere in the book.

This is NOT an issue with the seller. The item was in perfect condition and arrived in a great timing!

On every list, at every school

The film "There will be blood" is a shameless travesty of the book, which analyses the corruption in the oil industry and the intimidation of the unions. Anyone who admires the works of Ayn Rand should het a dose of this by way of a cure. Even the well-intentioned main characters get sucked into the maelstrom of big business. Unfortunately after 300 pages it becomes a bit boring, as the author tries to put in too much, but by then 99% of the readers will have learned a valuable lesson.

for more information click here

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

products you might be interested in