Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

BOOK REVIEWS - John C. Chalberg: Lehel Vadon: Upton Sinclair in Hungary. Eger, Hungary: College Press, 1993. 125 pp

which just happened to be dry. The result of those efforts was a Civil War novel which he called Manassas. This book was not a financial success, but it did lead directly to the writing and serializing of The Jungle through the popular socialist periodical, 'The Appeal of Reason." Despite tireless efforts and a genius for self-promotion (Like the American impresario, P. T. Barnum, Upton Sinclair held to the axiom that any publicity was good publicity.)

, Sinclair did not produce a novel to match The Jungle for a number of years, if ever. Jimmie Higgins, published in 1919, perhaps came close. Vadon calls it one of the "best known and most important works of anti-war socialist literature." Written in part to atone for his curious support for the American decision to enter World War I, Sinclair's novel also endorsed the Bolshevik Revolution. It was, Vadon, concludes, the work in which Sinclair "came closest to the philosophy of marxism." In all, the novel received two Hungarian translations and was made into a film in the Soviet Union. But Sinclair remained a missionary socialist, not a doctrinaire marxist. That point of view was clearly expressed in many of his post1920 books. And because of that point of view his continued popularity in Hungary was due in no small measure to the efforts of socialist magazines and newspapers. According to Lehel Vadon, between 1920 and 1945 Upton Sinclair was "one of the most widely read socialist writers in Hungary." But he was also a writer whose works were the subject of great debate within Hungary. To some Hungarian critics, his "individualistic socialist philosophy" was inadequately proletarian. To more "bourgeois critics" he was a writer with a pedestrian prose style and an inability to create compelling fictional characters. Despite these deficiencies, Sinclair did not lack for Hungarian readers and commentaries. Professor Vadon details a series of Sinclair productions that resonated with Hungarians. In fact, it was the contention of more than one Hungarian critic that through the early 1930s there were troubling similarities between the "historic situations" in Hungary and America. Reactionary regimes were in power in both 170