fanw (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fanw) wrote,@ 2008-06-11 13:31:00 |
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[Review] Oil! - Upton Sinclair
It's been six months since my last review and I've been reading all the while. However, rather than start with the oldest, I'll start with the newest. This one is Oil!, which was purported to be the basis of the movie There Will Be Blood. The movie felt like a good but inadequate effort to capture a long novel with intense conflict and interesting characters, and I wanted to see more of what seemed to be a lifelong rivalry between the two lead characters, J Ross and the preacher Eli.
What I got was something completely different, giving an entirely new meaning to the words "based on". The movie has some similarities to the first 100 pages of the book. There is the tough J Ross, bringing his son with him to all negotiations. There's a lot of drilling and even a fire at the well. But that's where the similarities end. What if Eli and J Ross were never in conflict? What if his son never went deaf, and Ross never repented, and never resented Eli? What if instead of having a final bloody conflict at the end, they both died happy and successful? What if, in fact, the main characters were not J Ross and Eli, but Ross's son and that other brother who went off to find himself work? The book and the movie feel like alternate universes, or at best a complete reworking from another angle such as what Ender's Shadow is to Ender's Game.
What IS the book about? It's about a young priveleged son of an oil magnate with guilt on his conscience. He befriends a hard-working boy, Paul, who has all the natural talents but none of the money backing him. Unlike his brother Eli who gives religious pap to the masses and is an acknowledged charlatan, Paul leads the workers in a strike, and later goes on to become a leader in the socialist revolution. There are long discussions about how oil money is the graft behind American politics, and that it goes right up to the top, with gobs of money spent to back particular presidential candidates in order to gain advantageous drilling rights. J Ross Jr. goes to socialist and communist meetings and with the brilliant example of the Bolshevik revolution (this book was published in 1927), the path is laid out for how the American worker might be able to overthrow the system, even though it's rigged against them.
This whole book is, well, sadly sweet. Sinclair doesn't write novels as such, he writes social commentary. His book The Jungle created such a stir it lead to the creation of the FDA. His book Oil? Well, just look at how many in the current administration have ties to the oil industry, look at how carefully Cheney's energy commission papers have been concealed, and look at how many times Bush's response to the current gas crisis is "Can we just drill in ANWAR already?" With the fall of the Soviet Union, Sinclair's images of a worldwide worker's revolution seem quaintly naive, but that still doesn't solve the original problem. Given that the purchasing of our democracy has been going on in pretty much the same way since he wrote the book 80 years ago, what is our new solution? Anybody? Hmm? Buehler?
It's not a great novel, but it has made me think, and that's what I'm sure Sinclair wanted me to do. I still wish I could read the non-existent novel behind There Will Be Blood but I suppose if I wish that, I should write it myself. Instead of fascinating characterizations, I'm left with a little nausea at the immutable nature of the political machine.
It's been six months since my last review and I've been reading all the while. However, rather than start with the oldest, I'll start with the newest. This one is Oil!, which was purported to be the basis of the movie There Will Be Blood. The movie felt like a good but inadequate effort to capture a long novel with intense conflict and interesting characters, and I wanted to see more of what seemed to be a lifelong rivalry between the two lead characters, J Ross and the preacher Eli.
What I got was something completely different, giving an entirely new meaning to the words "based on". The movie has some similarities to the first 100 pages of the book. There is the tough J Ross, bringing his son with him to all negotiations. There's a lot of drilling and even a fire at the well. But that's where the similarities end. What if Eli and J Ross were never in conflict? What if his son never went deaf, and Ross never repented, and never resented Eli? What if instead of having a final bloody conflict at the end, they both died happy and successful? What if, in fact, the main characters were not J Ross and Eli, but Ross's son and that other brother who went off to find himself work? The book and the movie feel like alternate universes, or at best a complete reworking from another angle such as what Ender's Shadow is to Ender's Game.
What IS the book about? It's about a young priveleged son of an oil magnate with guilt on his conscience. He befriends a hard-working boy, Paul, who has all the natural talents but none of the money backing him. Unlike his brother Eli who gives religious pap to the masses and is an acknowledged charlatan, Paul leads the workers in a strike, and later goes on to become a leader in the socialist revolution. There are long discussions about how oil money is the graft behind American politics, and that it goes right up to the top, with gobs of money spent to back particular presidential candidates in order to gain advantageous drilling rights. J Ross Jr. goes to socialist and communist meetings and with the brilliant example of the Bolshevik revolution (this book was published in 1927), the path is laid out for how the American worker might be able to overthrow the system, even though it's rigged against them.
This whole book is, well, sadly sweet. Sinclair doesn't write novels as such, he writes social commentary. His book The Jungle created such a stir it lead to the creation of the FDA. His book Oil? Well, just look at how many in the current administration have ties to the oil industry, look at how carefully Cheney's energy commission papers have been concealed, and look at how many times Bush's response to the current gas crisis is "Can we just drill in ANWAR already?" With the fall of the Soviet Union, Sinclair's images of a worldwide worker's revolution seem quaintly naive, but that still doesn't solve the original problem. Given that the purchasing of our democracy has been going on in pretty much the same way since he wrote the book 80 years ago, what is our new solution? Anybody? Hmm? Buehler?
It's not a great novel, but it has made me think, and that's what I'm sure Sinclair wanted me to do. I still wish I could read the non-existent novel behind There Will Be Blood but I suppose if I wish that, I should write it myself. Instead of fascinating characterizations, I'm left with a little nausea at the immutable nature of the political machine.
