Book Born of Controversy...

Years ago (as a Junior in High School), I took a college-level American History course. I wanted to get a head start on my General Ed requirements, and yes, I learned a great deal about American history (that was the point, right?), but the most memorable portion of the course was our reading of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle...

As Sinclair once famously quipped: "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." He wrote about the grotesque conditions of the meat-packing industry--the troubling details of that novel lead to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And, the novel has been banned and burned in countries around the world (according to the American Library Association): "Banned from public libraries in Yugoslavia (1929). Burned in the Nazi bonfires because of Sinclair's socialist views (1933). Banned in East Germany (1956) as inimical to communism. Banned in South Korea (1985)."

That little novel has caused quite a fuss, even as it has sometimes been criticized for its overly sensationalistic melodrama. It really made an impact. It causes the reader to think, perhaps even to imagine the true impact of how we live and what we eat. It's caused more than one reader to turn into a vegetarian (yep, those graphic depictions of animal slaughter kinda turns the stomach for beef products--a man after Michael Pollan's own heart)...

So--on this, the anniversary of Sinclair's birth--it's the perfect time to take a look at the The Jungle, with quotes, questions, and more... "It is a sound, a sound made up of ten thousand little sounds. You scarcely noticed it at first-it sunk into your consciousness, a vague disturbance, a trouble."