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Oil! (California Fiction) Paperback – April 30, 1997

by Upton Sinclair (Author)

4.1 724 ratings

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In Oil! Upton Sinclair fashioned a novel out of the oil scandals of the Harding administration, providing in the process a detailed picture of the development of the oil industry in Southern California. Bribery of public officials, class warfare, and international rivalry over oil production are the context for Sinclair's story of a genial independent oil developer and his son, whose sympathy with the oilfield workers and socialist organizers fuels a running debate with his father. Senators, small investors, oil magnates, a Hollywood film star, and a crusading evangelist people the pages of this lively novel.

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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Sinclair's 1927 novel did for California's oil industry what The Jungle did for Chicago's meat-packing factories. The plot follows the clash between an oil developer and his son. Typical of Sinclair, there are undertones here of socialism and sympathy for the common working stiff. Though the book is not out of print, this is the only paperback currently available.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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"He does his little bit of muck-raking. . . but the glorious story of the oil man and his son rushes on. It is a marvelous panorama of Southern California life. It is storytelling with an edge on it." -- The New Republic

"Oil! remains the most ambitious Southern California novel of the 1920s. . . . Chosen by the Literary Guild, Oil! made the best-seller list. Its sales were helped along when Sinclair, hoping to get arrested, personally hawked copies of the book on the streets of Boston, after it was banned there for its outspoken advocacy of birth control." -- Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of California Press; Reprint edition (April 30, 1997)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0520207270
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0520207271
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.25 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,786,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #195,879 in American Literature (Books)

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4.1 724 ratings

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Upton Sinclair

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Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author who wrote nearly 100 books and other works across a number of genres. Sinclair's work was well-known and popular in the first half of the twentieth century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.

In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle, which exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence." He is remembered for writing the famous line: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon him not understanding it."

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Jazzmama

If you like early 20th century writers, this is your man.

Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2007

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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.

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EMaz

Enjoy it for its economic and socio-political drama, but forget the characters.

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2016

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You can see where Paul Thomas Anderson drew inspiration from Oil! to make his film, There Will Be Blood; however, you can list the similarities on one hand: 1) It is the story of an oil man (Dad) and his boy (Bunny). 2) There is a ranch that is key to the development of Dad’s oil company. 3) Dad contends with larger oil companies. 4) Dad knows how to wheel and deal to get what he wants. 5) Like the Sunday family in the film, the Watkins family are religious, but too a much greater degree – they are “jumpers” that holler, speak and tongues, and roll around on the ground.

You will find other similarities, but the above are the most apparent. The differences are too many to list. The biggest deviations is the aspect of oil development that gets pushed aside in the latter half in favor of being a political think piece.

For some reviewers, the 2nd half is socialist propaganda. I don’t know enough about the global conflicts and economic history of that era to make judgement as to whether Sinclair is posturing his personal views, or whether his negative views of capitalism were justified. Regardless, we are receiving this information from the view of Bunny who believes in socialism.

Another important distinction between the movie and book: Bunny is the main character instead of the father. Dad has far less character development and is less interesting than Daniel Day Lewis’s character. They are both capitalist with strong anti-regulatory views, but Dad's the father-son conflict never really develops into something more interesting.

My major gripe with the novel is that it never goes beyond Bunny’s POV. We get to examine Bunny’s life as he grows into his role as instigator and “pro-red sympathizer,” but as you read into the last chapters of the book it all starts to feel familiar. Bunny argues his point. He gets his friends arrested. He complains about working conditions of oil workers. Then it repeats.

There are many more characters in the book than there are in the movie, but instead of giving them room to express their position, it all keeps falling back to Bunny. This is a problem because Bunny never makes a truly compelling argument.

All that is fine, however. The story was written in the 1920s so it's hard to gauge Sinclair's access to information about socialism.The lack of a truly compelling argument may be the result of how little his or anyone else understood about socialism.

Also, the book is a bit longer than I would have liked. The 2nd half feels slow because it is repetitive, but the saving grace is that I found Sinclair’s writing to be accessible with the right amount of detail where needed. He does an impressive job of describing how oil fields are discovered and developed – I wouldn’t know if this is accurate or not. His views of World War 1 have peaked my interest and I would like to learn more about the economic and political conflicts that served as a major point in the book.

If you enjoyed the economic aspects of There Will Be Blood, then you will probably enjoy Oil! If you rather read a dense character drama set against the backdrop of the oil boom in the early 1900s, then you might do well to read the first half and put the book down around the time when Bunny goes to college; or just watch the movie...

8 people found this helpful

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DJ

Highly Entertaining!

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2008

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I bought "Oil" because I really enjoyed "The Jungle." I didn't expect the book to be like the movie (which I personally thought was boring and pointless, but that's beside the point) and I wasn't disappointed. "Oil" is much more interesting in its complexity; the father in the book is neither a villian nor a hero, he just wants to do the "right thing" according to his own set of morals ... and he is not helped by his son, who questions everything as young people just beginning to discover the "world beyond the front porch" often do. Upton Sinclair does an excellent job of character development and expertly weaves together the lives of his many characters -- including one millionaire who lives with his actress girlfriend in a mansion high on a hill overlooking Pacific Ocean; methinks this person was loosely based on a real-life newspaper magnate? :-)

9 people found this helpful

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Schuyler T Wallace

MORE POLITICS THAN PETROLEUM

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2013

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Upton Sinclair, 1878-1968, was a prolific and controversial writer, most often thought of as a muckraker and social activist. He often used the novel with heavily researched factual information as its backdrop to espouse his socialist beliefs. He wrote nearly one hundred books, the most famous probably being THE JUNGLE, first published in 1906. I was fascinated by his accounts of the meatpacking industry and living conditions in Chicago at that time and have used that information many times to shock listeners and readers into being more careful about their view of American institutions and politics.

In his 1927 fictional account of the oil industry in California, aptly entitled OIL!, he relies heavily on his socialistic convictions in detailing the petroleum industry, its corrupt leaders, exploitation of workers, and political corruption. In fact I found these topics heavily overshadowing the pioneering achievements of the oil industry, thus creating a distraction for one who wanted to read about the actual exploration, drilling procedures, production, and marketing of petroleum in an industry into which I was born. Indeed I considered the award-winning movie "There Will Be Blood", reportedly loosely based on this book, to be a history of my grandfather's life in oil-rich California's Kern County, although hopefully he wasn't involved in the horrific violence and mayhem portrayed by Hollywood. I say loosely based because I didn't see much of the movie's premise in the book.

A father and son have a divisive relationship of finding and developing oil in a partnership that seems almost bogus on its face. There's the old school oilman, once a mule skinner, who is relentless in his drive to increase the size of his black gold fortune. The son, spoiled by his easy access to the profits, adopts fervor for the socialistic movement of the early 1920s, and is a constant threat to the economic welfare of the industry that funds his playboy life. The father not only accepts the son's activity but almost seems to get enjoyment from it. Sinclair promotes the ideals of socialism versus the evils of communism throughout the book. In fact, the reader is indoctrinated thoroughly about the two concepts as well as the efforts to introduce both ideologies into America. Sinclair also took the opportunity to inject his interest in the occult and telepathy into the story's pages. If these subjects reflect your interest, this is a fine book. If, however, you want to learn more about the oil industry, I suggest you look elsewhere.

The author was described by Time magazine as "a man with every gift except humor and silence." There were attempts at humor in this book but, when recognized, were scarcely humorous. And he was anything but silent. His writing was wordy, dated, much too flowery, and obsessed with off topic information. If you like controversial political idealism, you might enjoy the book. If your interest is more industry oriented, you'll probably want to look elsewhere.

Schuyler T Wallace
Author of TIN LIZARD TALES

3 people found this helpful

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wanderer

Good copy of great old book

Reviewed in Canada on June 19, 2023

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Cover good, print good. Nice to be able to read old books.

Francesca

Regalo super apprezzato

Reviewed in Italy on March 5, 2024

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Ho acquistato questo libro come regalo per il mio ragazzo. "Il Petroliere", tratto proprio da questo, è il suo film preferito e il suo feedback dopo la lettura è stato al pari del film.

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leonardo

Oil

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 27, 2024

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Great story.

007

Viel mehr als die Vorlage zum Film

Reviewed in Germany on January 29, 2023

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Upton Sinclair (1878 - 1968) ist den meisten - wenn überhaupt - durch "Der Dschungel" bekannt. Er war ein hervorragender Sozialkritker des US amerikanischen Staates und Gesellschaftssystems. Leider ist die Verfilmung weit weg von der Qualität und der Story des Buches. Sehr lesenswert... Außerdem zu empfehlen von ihm "The Carpenter".

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Cesar Adrian Bajonero Acosta

Excelente estado.

Reviewed in Mexico on January 15, 2021

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Buscaba una versión hardcover, pero este formato fue más práctico para la persona a quien se lo regale. Librazo.

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