book by Eric Schlosser.
This book has been highly recommend and read in my circles of friends. It looks at the current and historical conditions of the fast food industry, in theory, but it really focuses on the major players--mainly McDonalds. I don't think I'll really get into to too much about the book and my responses to the material. It is such a hotly discusses topic, at least in the people I know, that I'd be speaking to already saturated ears, but I do have some issues and praises for the book.
First, I am throughly impressed with how the book is written. The writer has a powerful command of prose and does an excelled job of pulling in parallel example to make his point either more or less powerful. For example, he plays the AIDS card when discussing e.coli. What a wonderful literary move, pull in a subject that holds so much weight and societal clout to carry along his point. To that I applaud him. In fact, many times throughout the book, he threw in so many similar tactics that I just laughed and silently applauded his technique. This man knows exactly when and how to say something to really drive a point, to make your perk your ears, and to make you gasp his revelations. Impressive indeed. Now, just because I recognize this tactic does not mean that I don't agree with much of what I read. I feel that it was an excellent way to make the points he wanted to make and a good eye opener for much of the public that chooses to read the book (a select population, unfortunately).
My complaints come with his literary style as well. His chapters had set formulas and I was so tired of them by the third chapter I wanted to cut the book up and reorder it into a logical sense that didn't need the attention span hand holding and outrage inertia maintenance that was built into each section. Yes, it is a powerful tool for the purpose of his book, but I got tired of it because I didn't need it. I was already there on his side, not teetering on the sidelines or needing a stiff tug to bring me ove. So those tactics that work so well for those people, just annoyed me. And, when thinking about 'those people', the audience of the book, there seems like this books had an intended audience, and expected audience, and a hopeful audience. Now, unfortunately, the intended audience and the hopefully audience are about one in the same and I'm not sure they fall into that population that actually bought the book and read it. I'm sure many did, but on a scale of millions that should? So for the expected audience, the ones just nodding their heads with the turn of the page, the enticement of alarm was a bit redundant on the ears.
Finally, while I did really appreciate the research and the work that went into the book, there was another major problem that I had in the end. All through the book there were claim upon claims made against different industries. Claims about the poor conditions or workers or the unsafe food practices and such, shouted loud and clear throughout the book. But then, the end of the book comes the statements of repairs and adjustments and how these companies have fixed many, though not all, and while still needing improvements, it left me very bothered. If I had not read that far, if I had simply done as I occasionally do and gathered the information I need from a particular section of the book, I'd be walking around the with impression that these companies have done nothing at all to improve these conditions. I've felt so self righteous in my condemnation of their entire industry.
For me, it felt like a deception, to have built up this outrage, a word I continue to use because it so fits the alarmist theme of the book, just to have the final section of the book suddenly back pedal with a few polite phrases. Since these are sections that were added after the books production, they should not be left to the very end when they are there to say that the industry has corrected, in some measures, some of the very things mentioned in this book. It is unfair to the industry, regardless of the industries overall fairness, and to its readers. I spent a week reading the book and speaking to friends about things I was discovering and how some things had me shocked. And then, lying in bed, finishing the book, I find that my "you know what..." statements were, in some ways, totally false. I'm all up for raising general awareness of the actions of major corporations, but I'm also interested in doing so in a fair and reasonable manner. The book does an excellent job addressing the history and the political concerns of the fast food industry, it just needs to carefully toe the line of crossing over into their definition of fair industry practices.
written on June 29, 2005