theduckthief’s Comments (group member since Apr 10, 2008)

theduckthief’s comments from the The Classics group.

Finally. Book One is done.

The version I'm reading is online and seems to have been Christianized, making references to "God", "Heaven" and "Hell".

It's my understanding that this work was oral poetry. Just as with "The Iliad" or "The Odyssey", the various rhymes would have helped the speaker remember the words.

Apollo and Cupid fighting was interesting though it sounded like Apollo was misled by his own oracles.

Also, is Hera just dumb? Zeus promises on his "honour" that he won't sleep with Io again. She must know that he'll just move on to someone else.

For this month's book I just read the first online version I could find. I figured that everyone would pick up different editions and thought it would be interesting to compare them.

It sounds like Ovid is it.

It's too bad that "The Jungle" fizzled out for us. But we can pick a new book for June and move on. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Well and a lot of the book seems to focus more on the process of meat packing and how the public is cheated by Big Industry and fed substandard and unsanitary food. The plot feels like it's pushed into the background.

It also doesn't help that the suffering of the characters is so extreme. At some point I became desensitized to it and questioned its believability.

That idea of food throughout the book and how corners are cut are what kept me from eating my lunch and reading this at the same time.

This book really made me appreciate my job. It's not my dream job but at least I don't need to worry about being replaced if I'm sick or my wages being constantly lowered. I don't work in unsafe or unsanitary conditions and thankfully I belong to a union.

I'm sure that Sinclair hasn't exaggerated working conditions and I can't help but feel this sense of awe at the workers, the generation of my great grandparents that lived in those times. How did they ever survive? They seem so much stronger then we are today in their will to do what must be done, despite how painful and exhausting it might be.

This is one of the most gross and depressing books I've read in a long time. Depressing because of what Jurgis and the others have to go through. They, like so many other immigrants in the book, arrive with the hope to make a better life for themselves and end up being cheated at every turn.

Gross because of the descriptions of the conditions in the factories, the chemicals and what exactly happens to the meat and the leftovers. I found I couldn't eat anything while reading this book.

That said Sinclair was able to make me care about the characters. I wanted them to succeed, I wanted to see them overcome all the swindlers and the corruption in Packingtown.

Sounds good.

Since I have a copy of "The Jungle" handy I vote for Sinclair.