Three Books Everyone Should Read Again

Books become classics for a variety of reasons. For this article, I have chosen three classics that today are often overlooked because they were written long ago.

Even though the language and wording may be from a historical period, they stand the test of time because they were well written and discuss human behavior and the challenges of mankind. They are timeless lessons we should never forget.

So, without further ado…

The Jungle — Upton Sinclair

This 1905 novel began life as an exposé of the abysmal working conditions in the Chicago stockyards at that time. The story is told through the life of Jurgis Ruckus a Lithuanian immigrant. Sinclair goes deeper to expose the unfair treatment of the mostly immigrant working class, and the slum living conditions where the companies housed their workers.

Set in the Chicago neighborhood of Packingtown, Sinclair details the savagery of the Chicago stockyards at a time before the industry was regulated.

Sinclair, a Socialist, spent months working undercover in the meat packing houses in Chicago. His novel targeted the greed surrounding capitalist owners and corrupt politicians who supported them.

The Jungle so enraged people who were unaware of the terrible conditions at the Chicago slaughterhouses that they demanded change. The book aided efforts by reformers known as muckrakers to force the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

Sinclair’s descriptions and details are vividly documented. Anyone who reads The Jungle is sure to be outraged by this fictional story based on non-fiction.

My Take On It.

The Jungle holds a special place in my mind because as a boy, my grandfather took me to the Chicago Stockyards. I remember seeing a sea of cattle penned up awaiting their turn to be slaughtered. I can still smell the stench from the killing bins.

On the way home, my grandfather, an Italian immigrant, related to me gruesome stories of cows being shuttled into bins where a man with a ball peen sledgehammer would smash their skulls, killing or knocking them out. Sometimes the cows would panic, and the clubber would have to hit them two or three times. The cows would defecate and urinate, and bleed in the bin, which wasn’t cleaned until it got so bad the men couldn’t work. Once the cow was sufficiently subdued, the clubber would slit their throat, tie a chain around their feet, and haul them away to be skinned and slaughtered. The next cow would be forced into the bin, and the process repeated.

I thought he was just trying to shock me. Then, some 40 years later, I read the book The Jungle. I was astonished to read how Sinclair documented the exact same sickening accounts my grandfather told me as a boy.

While times have changed, and we don’t believe this type of thing could reoccur, the premise remains the same. Anyone who believes that capitalism will self-regulate itself needs to read The Jungle. You will thank your lucky stars for government regulations.

1984 — George Orwell

The book details the world through the eyes of Winston Smith. In 1984, the world was at perpetual war between three superpowers Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. When Oceania is at war with Eurasia, it is peaceful with Eastasia. When the focus shifts and some fabricated political ideology changes, Oceania goes to war with Eastasia, and for a short time, Eurasia is tolerated. This arrangement keeps the proletariat from being desensitized and leaves them always afraid of the enemy.

Big Brother monitors everyone’s actions through the telescreen, a two-way device that provides all news, entertainment, and communications for the population. Winston, a middle manager at the Ministry of Truth, views himself as a resister to the mainstream party propaganda of Big Brother. He despises all Big Brother stands for.

He tries to avoid the propaganda by hiding from the telescreen, but despite his attempts not to get caught up in the stream of negative information, it is omnipresent, and he cannot avoid it.

In one passage in the book, Winston is attending a mandatory Two Minute Hate, a pseudo-news broadcast that appears on telescreens everywhere. Despite his anti-Big Brother conviction, he finds the broadcast so compelling, he quickly joins in shouting and stomping his feet in agreement with the others in the audience.

Smith, who fancies himself as a writer, keeps a journal as a way of documenting his sanity. Later, he joins a resistance group called the Brotherhood, who attempt to debunk Big Brother’s propaganda.

The Thought Police eventually discover his hidden agenda. They don’t eliminate him, instead, they subject him to weeks of psychological treatment at the Ministry of Love, where he eventually realizes that he actually loves Big Brother.

My take on it.

Most people I know read the book Nineteen Eighty-Four in high school. We were told it was about Communism and specifically the U.S.S.R. We ignored it and said, “Boy am I glad we live in the U.S., it can’t happen here”.

Of course, the book wasn’t about Communism, it was about totalitarianism, mass surveillance (are you listening Siri?), censorship (book banning), and never-ending streams of propaganda (social media & biased news broadcasts), and how people are manipulated into thinking and agreeing to almost anything.

There simply are so many parallels between the world that Winston Smith experienced and the modern transition to our current world of mass misinformation and its effects on the population of people who cannot turn off their television, computer, or phone long enough to think for themselves without being influenced by media.

If Orwell were alive today, he would likely write a new edition of the story titled 2024.

The Death Of Ivan Ilych — Leo Tolstoy

The Death of Ivan Ilyich tells the story of a high-court judge in 19th-century Russia.

Ivan begins life as the son of a bureaucrat with high expectations. He attends law school and assumes he will be granted a life of success and prestige.

Working hard, he advances his career and accordingly climbs his way up the social ladder. Eventually rising to the position of magistrate, a rank of authority and privilege. It seems Ilyich has arrived and risen above the average.

Despite his success, his life becomes one of frustration. His home life is so unfulfilling that he finds it, “most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”

One day, at the behest of his overbearing wife, Ivan is demonstrating to his upholsterer how to hang wall decorations. He falls off a ladder, injuring himself. Thinking the injury is minor and he will soon recover, he endures the pain in his side and continues to work.

His injury is more serious than he first thought, and he continues to experience pain that he cannot shed. After seeking the help of doctors who cannot diagnose his condition, Ivan learns that his injury will only worsen and is in fact terminal. Seeking every possible cure available, his condition only worsens, and he is forced to quit working. Soon, the pain is so great that he becomes bedridden.

As his condition worsens, Ivan ponders why such a thing has happened to him, a man of integrity and power. He worked so hard to achieve success and surely is not deserving of such a dismal fate.

His last weeks are fraught with hate for ill-timed luck and his family, who treated him with disrespect. He becomes disenchanted with his doctors and consumed with the fear of death. He struggles as a man condemned to death struggles in the hands of the executioner. In his last hours, knowing that he cannot save himself, he succumbs, and his fear is replaced by the glorious light. He makes peace with his mortality, and as Tolstoy suggests, death itself disappears.

My take on it.

Never in my life have I read a book that has so clearly sent a message about how we live our lives. Tolstoy does a masterful job of describing his characters, their thoughts, and emotions. In Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy creates a character who is unlikeable, yet somehow relatable. Along the way, he sets the stage for the final heart-wrenching scenes.

At times, Ivan Ilyich’s frustration with life is apparent, but he soldiers on, always believing there is more. Then, when he faces the inevitable end, the pain, suffering, and fear of death are terrifying.

For me, the message is crystal clear. People become so engrossed in achieving success (whatever that means), making money, or striving for fame, that they lose track of the fact that it will all end on your last day. No matter how much you achieve in life, you will die.

Focusing all your effort on materialism is an exercise in futility that will leave thinking your life is incomplete because there is always more.

In the end, you will lie on your deathbed, mumbling, “Rosebud.”

Summary

All three of these books fall into the category of a novella. Proving that you don’t need 500 pages to tell an epic story. Each can be read in one or two hours.

If you haven’t read these books or read them many years ago, they certainly are worth a revisit. They may affect your thinking in ways books with modern themes will not.

The Jungle and The Death of Ivan Ilyich are both in the public domain, so reading them won’t cost you a penny. 1984 won’t arrive in the public domain until 2044, but copies are available in libraries and cheaply through used bookstores.

If you are open-minded and want to elevate your thinking, go back and read these old classics. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.