#upton and i are on a first name basis dont worry about it

[girinma]

ok i've been super lazy about this but finally here's my review of Oil!

Oil! is an Upton Sinclair novel about the son of an oil millionaire in the california oil boom, starting when he's 13 up to his twenties. this book has everything. there's the frenzy of oil drilling at the turn of the century. there's WWI. there's hollywood misogyny and abuse. there's leftist infighting. The dad accidentally starts a cult. there's strikes. there's two violent scenes that make you remember Sinclair wrote The Jungle.

I LOVED this book. So many things happen so nothing drags, but at the same time, nothing is ever dropped. It is shockingly relevant to the current moment and would make a fantastic book club discussion book. There's capitalism vs socialism vs communism, and the power oil has over the world. The modern lens of climate change puts this incredible doom over everything because you know every move the oil magnates make is destroying the entire planet. You can talk about Me Too. Upton predicts WWII but doesn't seem to recognize fascism as the enemy it is? Despite mentioning Mussolini?

9/10 it gets dinged because of his racism keeping him from doing a full critique of the labor movement at the time. if he was like "maybe we should include people of color in unions" it would be a perfect book. alas.

that being said I DO highly recommend. we gotta go wild for the 100th anniversary of this one.

Overt racism is rare but Upton's personal prejudice stops him from being able to see the flaw of segregation in the labor movement. The most striking moment to me is when Bunny is at a hollywood party during prohibition and there are asian servants silently passing out drinks to all the stars. And rather than comment on how these men are seen as invisible by the white stars, they're supposed to be symbols of the alcohol the carry and the desire to drink??? like??? the thesis of the book is hindered by his racism.

I think you could do a pretty faithful TV adaptation and add in race without it feeling off. I could see Rachel as being abnormally pro-equality and bringing up Mexican farm workers in discussion of workers' rights, since she and her family did summer picking work.

The book is surprisingly progressive with women? Women can have careers and go to college??? In my old book? The 20s sexual dynamic also makes the whole thing feel more modern.

I keep thinking about a modern AU and I almost see Bunny as like a child of a Paypal mafia guy? A Jeff Bezos? Like they have to be nouveau rich. Bunny is worried about the labor conditions in their factories or warehouses or whatever. Everything else plays out the same but Papa Ross explicitly calls Bunny gay rather than soft. Literally everything else can be the same and still make sense.

Upton really got me with the ending because i was so sure he was going to have Bunny set up a dumb utopian society and have a happy ending. but then Ruth kills herself in an oil well and its like. that's how this story is supposed to end. i never should have doubted you.