Oil! by Upton Sinclair is the book that inspired the movie There Will Be Blood starring Daniel Day Lewis. I loved There Will Be Blood and so I decided to check out the book.
If you’re looking for anything related to There Will Be Blood, don’t read this book. Honestly, I’m not sure that the movie had to give credit to Oil!. There is no Daniel Plainview accompanied by his boy H. W. Instead, there are J. Arnold Ross and J. Arnold Ross, Jr., otherwise known as Bunny. And the book actually follows adult Bunny rather extensively. The lad even goes to college!
Sure, there are Paul and Eli Watkins, but Paul plays a bigger part than Eli.
And the book is much more political than There Will Be Blood. To me, the movie was more about the demise of one person, Daniel Plainview, whereas Oil! is about the corruption of capitalism and petroleum.
If you’ve also read The Jungle, then you won’t be surprised that this book is full of pro-Socialist propaganda.
The book is a simple read, yet it took me forever to finish. The subchapters are extremely short, about 2-3 pages a piece, which makes it hard to get a flow for the book. All in all, I enjoyed this book. However, I do feel this is one of those rare cases where the movie was better than the book.
