Grade A Prime Cut

Current book: The Jungle
Pages read: 1 - 53

So, basically what's happened so far is that Jurgis and Ona, a young Lithuanian couple, have immigrated with their family to Chicago and are trying to make a go of survival there. Jurgis has secured a job at the stockyards shoveling entrails off the slaughter floor, and as a result of his high wages of 35 cents an hour, the family has decided to buy a house. They were skeptical of the contract for the house, which seemed to agree only to rent it to them until the full price had been paid, but signed it anyway after consulting a couple of lawyers who assured them that it was a common technicality.

That's all we've got as far as plot goes, but there's also been a great deal of description of the awful working conditions of the Chicago stockyards and slaughterhouses, the treatment of new immigrants, and, of course, the unsanitary nature of large-scale meat production.

It's funny, this book. Sinclair clearly meant it to be a socialist treatise on the demoralizing and inhuman working conditions of the modern American city, and instead, everyone who read it just went, "Oh my God, sausage is so gross!" And so the USDA was born.

I'll give you more when I've got more to work with, but for now, just think about carcasses and blood. Is it gross? Then you're getting the gist.