reading Oil! by Upton Sinclair
reading Oil! by Upton Sinclair
Oil! is a novel by Upton Sinclair, first published in 1926ā27 and told as a third-person narrative, with only the opening pages written in the first person. The book was written in the context of the Harding administration's Teapot Dome Scandal and takes place in Southern California. It is a social and political satire skewering the human foibles of all its characters.
The main character is James Arnold Ross Jr., nicknamed Bunny, son of an oil tycoon. Bunny's sympathetic feelings toward oilfield workers and socialists provoke arguments with his father throughout the story. The beginning of the novel served as a loose inspiration for the 2007 film There Will Be Blood.
My Take: Basically the TL;DR is that Oil companies have been buying politicians and stalling progress while their actions destroy the lives of untold masses forever. This book is like 100 years old, so that means it has been a big enough problem to write a whole pulpy novel about it for longer than any of us will ever live. Corporations are bad. Great characters and retro cultural obscura!
Linked below is an excellent copy by Standard Ebooks you can legally have for free if you also want to be mad about the oil industry and capitalism more broadly.