More on Blood Not Oil

After my rant earlier, I was glad to see someone else agreeing and putting things in a bit more context in this SJMercury opinion piece.

And so "Oil!" is a jampacked but pedantic novel, one that few would bother with today. Those who do read it, however, will find that the radical writer provided a surprisingly fair-minded portrait of the oil tycoon who is the story's main character. Sinclair shows us a man who takes justifiable pride in his ability to find and pump oil. In the process, he breaks strikes and bribes officials - not because he is excessively greedy but because he knows how the game works in capitalist America. He plays by the rules as he finds them, and he is well-rewarded for giving the world what it wants.

The novel centers on this man's relationship with his son, a young idealist who loves his father but repudiates the family business when he joins the socialist cause. Although the father is bemused by his son's political heresies and the son rejects his father's moral compromises, the two remain devoted to each other. Their blood is thicker than oil.

In contrast, the oil man in "There Will Be Blood" hungers to succeed only out of spite for his fellow man. In the film's most quoted and most ludicrous lines, Plainview explains, "I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people. . . . I want to earn enough money so I can get away from everyone."

It seems Sinclair was an early pioneer in having books adapted to film, finding himself disappointed in the result. He said,

"it is the amiable custom of the film producers . . . to take an author's name and the title of his book, and then write an entirely different story of their own, which they think will please the public better."

At least some things haven't changed much.