Oil!

Although a novel, Oil! is political and sociological primer that is every bit as relevant today as a hundred years ago. Should be required reading in every high school program.

I came to "Oil!" for two reasons. One, I had recently read "The Jungle," and became enamored with Sinclair's wit and prose; two, I had watched "There Will Be Blood," and found it such a thought-provoking film that I had better read the book that inspired it. (This tactic worked recently for me, with "Blood's" ideological counterpart "No Country Old Men", which got me hooked on the writing of Cormac McCarthy.) I hesitate to throw out a disclaimer, but I must assume that many potential readers will come to this book through the movie, so I have to say it: The book is nothing like the film (which directer Paul Thomas Anderson has stated); the movie gets its start from the first few pages of "Oil!"; which means, since there's over 500 pages left, that there's quite a bit of story yet to tell. I say this simply as a disclaimer. By all means, buy the book and read it. Upton Sinclair was known for his Socialist sympathies ("Oil!", like "The Jungle," reads like a Socialist manifesto), but what interests me about his writing is how his prose is still poetic and witty. Yes, there are some political points that, now having experienced WWII and the Cold War, seem dated; but in 1927, Sinclair was a borderline-revolutionary, and his Socialist sympathies put him in danger. He managed to convey that fear to "Oil!", which details an oil tycoon's son, as he slips into the Socialist world and ends up fighting the industry that made his dad a success. I wouldn't say "Oil!" is as cutting-edge as "The Jungle" was, but it certainly is a social commentary/satire that cuts straight to the bone of American capitalism. Written eighty years ago, it still holds power today; if that isn't a sign of great literature, then I just don't know what is.

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE THE OIL BUSINESS, LIKE NO BUSINESS YOU'LL KNOW. A bit different from the movie, "Oil" is a story written from the third person narrative of Bunny Arnold Ross Jr, son of oil tycoon, Arnold Ross. The story follows Arnold Ross from scroungy wildcatter to oil tycoon. "Oil" was written at the turn of the century by "muckraker" Upton Sinclair. I've read a lot of Sinclair novels and have come to own many of his first editions, but his appeal to me was not immediate. The Jungle, for example, was written about the Chicago meatpacking industry. It's publication-first as a special edition for members of the Communist Party- provoked the government to pass the meat inspecting standards that we now have-"USDA Inspected". Sinclair novels often lack denouement and the plots are thinly disguised vehicles for presenting a litany of horrors perpetrated against the poor by greedy capitalists. The list of horrors can be shocking-workers lost limbs in vats of meat and production was not stopped to recover the limb or help the dying man-but even lists of horrors need to be presented with strong plots. What is present in "Oil" the novel that is not present in "There Will Be Blood" is that Bunny argues fervently with his father on behalf of his father's oil workers. In the movie, we see Daniel Day Lewis stopping work for a day when an oil worker is crushed at the bottom of a well. In a Sinclair novel, the worker would have been left at the bottom of the well as long as he wasn't clogging flow. Or you see Daniel Day Lewis tenderly adopt the orphaned child of a friend. In a Sinclair novel, an orphaned child that needed feeding and couldn't work would have been left to die in the desert. Sinclair presented the difference between capitalists and socialists starkly. Capitalists were always and completely without humanity. The novel actually explains a lot of holes in the movie. The parting of Arnold and his son when Arnold is grown didn't make a lot of sense to me in the film. Arnold writes off his adopted son indifferently and there isn't anything in the movie which predicates that kind of reaction. We see Arnold grooming his son, sending him to a special school after his eyes are burned, yearning for him when he is gone. Writing him off when he's 20 seems to make no sense at all. But in the book Bunny and Arnold have spent a lifetime arguing the socialist agenda and Arnold feels that a man with Bunny's convictions can't be his son and lets him go. What is also missing in the film but explained in the book is the sudden and unexplained disappearance of Arnold's best friend. I guess the film didn't want to risk appearing socialist but I'm not sure the script makes sense without the presence of socialist ideals in it. No socialist portrayal of the world would be complete without running down the opiate of the masses, religion. Sinclair's novel depicts religion as hoodwinking the oppressed rather than helping them. Arnold's struggle in the movi

"Oil" may be the title of Upton Sinclair's expansive work of historical fiction first published in 1927, but the meat of the novel is about the incipient titanic struggle between Communism and Capitalism dating to the closing days of World War I. In Sinclair's view (one which has largely been censored from popular views of American history), Russian Bolsheviks quickly became the nemesis of American and European Capitalism. Efforts at "containment" started immediately after the war with the maintenance of a large American garrison in Vladivostok to protect the railway and munitions assets of J.P. Morgan that were securing a loan to the British government. According to Sinclair, the U.S. government also financed and encouraged multiple mercenary armies (most notably in Poland) along the Russian borders in an effort to neutralize the Communist takeover. This was all done at the behest of "big business" interests in the U.S. who expected that our armed forces would protect them and their assets anywhere in the world. This is one of the main threads that Sinclair continues to develop for the remainder of the novel. The author is remarkable in his ability delineate the opposing viewpoints in this monumental battle which has affected so many of the events of the past 70 years. Here's a prescient quote from 1927. "You really think there'll be another war, Paul?" "Paul answered that armaments produce wars automatically; the capitalists who make the armaments have to see that they are used, in order to get to make more. Bunny said that the idea of another war seemed too horrible to think about; and Paul replied, "So you don't think about it, and that makes it easy for the business men to get it ready" In view of our current involvement in the Middle East, one has to wonder when if ever we will be able to get onto a different path forward.

Sinclair's writing style is gregarious, repetitive. He hits you on the head with the 'poor working class stiff' schtick, but if you can get past it, what he's describing is actually quite interesting. Sinclair's book is a worthwhile read not only for its striking similarities to our own times, which many people have already stated. But his depictions of the early 20th century in southern California, the social mores, the living conditions, the locations -- are all his images, as he experienced them, or imagined them. They may not have been 'real' but they are certainly what we no longer experience. Los Angeles and Long Beach with derricks, dirt road travelling, working class lives, oak forests in places no longer existant, oil derrick explosions. It was incredibly interesting to read Sinclair's version of how derricks were built, maintained, and occasionally destroyed. Highly recommended for California early 20th century history buffs.

Anyone who wants a vivid, first-hand account of Southern California life in the 1920's will love this novel. It captures the go-go energy of the times, peppered with jazz-era slang, which perhaps was so fresh at the time this novel was written that Sinclair chose to put these terms in quotations. (Modern readers will be surprised that most of this slang is in common use today). Of course, one can't ignore the larger political, social and cultural themes that explode upon these pages. The oil boom that grips everyone in Southern California is just the tip of the iceberg. The weirder aspect is how little has changed in the past 75 years, We are still grappling with the same issues of political corruption, wage inequality, excesses of capitalism, cult of celebrity, and lest we forget, the youth and car culture. Even more disturbing are the passing references to American oil interests in the middle east. There's some laugh out loud passages; one of the most memorable concerns an Oklahoma oil man who lays on the down-home drawl to intimadate European diplomats. Hmmmm, now that sounds familiar....