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Oil
  
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Oil (Hardcover)

by Upton Sinclair (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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9 new from £31.84 6 used from £32.53
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 544 pages
  • Publisher: Frederick Ellis (28 Feb 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1934568457
  • ISBN-13: 978-1934568453
  • Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.7 x 4.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,752,364 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #57 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Sinclair, Upton

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Product Description

The New Republic
"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."
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), novelist and journalist, is best known for his novel about the Chicago meatpacking industry, The Jungle. A paperback edition of his I, Candidate for Governor is available from California. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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82% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Very different to the film, 5 April 2008
By Andrew Norman "andrew0410" (Beds, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Oil! (There Will Be Blood) (Paperback)
Rather than being about Daniel Plainfield and to a lesser extent his "son" HW, the book is told mainly from the perspective of "Bunny" Ross, the actual son of oilman J Arnold Ross. There are very significant roles for two of the Watkins brothers: Eli the Pentecostal preacher, corrupt as in the film, but more believable here to those who know something of Pentecostalism in 1920s California (some of the material clearly influenced by the career of Aimee Semple Macpherson); and a very prominent role for Paul, the politically committed union activist who ultimately becomes a communist, and has a profound influence on "Bunny".

Why three stars? Well, for me three stars means averagely good, four stars is for significantly better than average and only the truly exceptional should get five stars. There is much to admire and enjoy here, but it was written in 1926, and the author's advocacy of socialism/communism, with his enthusiasm for communist Russia seems hopelessly naive and misplaced, given what we have known for many decades now. Human greed is an evil thing, and the capitalist beast needs taming, but communism proved a worse system than America in the 1920s in virtually every respect.
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16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that changes one who reads it...The film on the other hand is in shambles, 25 Feb 2008
This review is from: Oil! (There Will Be Blood) (Paperback)
Sabahattin Ali is said to have commented on this book that whoever reads this book becomes a socialist. This book carefully re-creates the atmosphere of the early periods of United States and the emergence of oil barons. The story revolves around the son of a wealthy oilman and his role model a communist worker. Paul is a very political person in every aspect, he organises the workers, deciphers the US Army's involvement in the Far East part of the Soviet Union. Also in the book is mentioned the Teapot Dome scandal involving the then president Warren Harding-one of the least succesful presidents of the US.

I have already watched the film "There will be Blood" based upon "Oil!". The film has to be watched and judged seperately as it has no connections whatsoever with the book. As an adaptation it is disgraceful to use Upton Sinclair's or Oil!'s name. Only the beginnig of the book is same where we meet the characters. No World War 1, no scandal, no class warfare is mentioned. I like Daniel Day Lewis, and he does a brilliant acting but I think he was used as pawn for the cencors of the original book. For me I can only say that do NOT watch the movie, read the book instead...
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Not "There Will Be Blood", 16 Nov 2008
By J. Bowen "Jamie Bowen" (Hampstead London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Oil! (There Will Be Blood) (Paperback)
"There Will Be Blood" was a famous film from 2007. It became specially renowned when it helped win the best actor for Daniel Day Lewis. The director said the story was drawn from this book.

In response to the directors comments, I would say that it focuses mainly on the first third of this book, because while the film focuses on the story of a father who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, the book focuses more on the growth of the son. As the son matures he becomes his own person, so when he is young (as he is in the first third of the book), we see more of the father, because the son is more dependant on him at a young age.

The story also isn't about the growth of an oil firm at the hands of a maniacal of a father (as it seems to be in the film). For while we see the firm grow, Sinclair, the author, was more interested in portraying real life, and how employees are treated by big business at the time.

Had the film been made this year, I'd argue that the film would have a very different focus. Instead of focusing on one mad individual, it could have been a damning indictment of coporate greed and the way it treats its employees, which is something more like what the book is like I think.

In short, if the director had made the book, it would be a lot more challenging for big business to defend the actions of the central characters here, and so it is fair to say that this book is not "There Will Be Blood"
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Oil by Upton Sinclair - the original novel
We read "Oil" for our Book Group and everyone who came along to the discussion rated it highly. It has a light, amusing style and a witty turn of phrase, while the content is... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Burncastle

4.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Solid stuff that meets all of Sinclair's ideological convictions without losing its sense of readability (though the 1st half is markedly more engaging than the 2nd). Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Matthew J. Lees

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent written book by a world famous author.
One of my favorite books of all times. Upton Sinclair is a literary master. The book is intense, and moves through all its nearly 600 pages. Read more
Published on 27 April 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Historical Novel
If one can look through the Muckraking Sinclair is doing, the book paints a detailed portrait of the oil industry, movie industry and overall life in southern California in the... Read more
Published on 28 Nov 1997

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