Ragtime

Aug 24, 2012 Joy H. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adapted-to-film, watched-film-too, historical-fiction, award-winner

Re: _Ragtime_ by E.L. Doctorow

2/18/11 - I've finished reading this book. I have to say that I enjoyed the film more. The plotline with the Coalhouse Walker, Jr. character was diluted in the book because the book (as opposed to the film) included more characters and subplots. Much of the text was taken up with the blending of the fictitious characters with the true-life historical personages and historic events. Although it was interesting the way Doctorow wove the fiction and non-fiction togethe...more

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Sep 13, 2008 Ally Armistead rated it 3 of 5 stars

"Ragtime" is one of the most unusual novels I have ever read. It is fragmentary, hectic--the lives of early twentieth-century people, some famous and others fictional, burst onto the page without apology, without qualification or exclamation for their ambition. Houdini strives to stand out and above the progress in technology. Morgan wants to find the essence of the genius. Emma Goldman wants the world to run amuck, promotes anarchy and freedom of all humans--outside of institutions. Evelyn Nesb...more

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Dec 18, 2007 Tracey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those interested in a slice of life story from turn of the 10th century New York City

Shelves: nyc

I tried to take my time with this book & pretty much failed. I found it to be a fascinating look at the turn of the 20th century as viewed by 3 families living in the greater New York City area and how their lives intertwine with each other, as well as famous figures such as Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Emma Goldman & Evelyn Nesbit. I thought it was a little odd (and distracting) that the main family had no names, instead going by Father, Mother and Mother's Younger Brother, despite makin...more

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Jan 05, 2008 rinabeana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club

This is a fantastic work of historical fiction. My (somewhat stricter than other people's) definition of historical fiction is a novel in which historical figures not only play a part, but interact with the fictional characters in the story. This novel delivered that in spades! I don't have a large amount of background on the historical figures in the novel, but I read up a little on them and it became clear to me how well Doctorow had fit his fictional characters into their lives. None of what...more

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Feb 08, 2008 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Historical fiction tends to run into this problem of interior authenticity - you can perfectly nail a description of a Model T ambling its way along a cobblestone street, but what is the person driving the Model T thinking? How can an author living in our era get inside the selves of characters who inhabit a completely different time?

Ragtime's major success is that it lays out its characters' inner lives in all their strangeness to our own. It sets semi-legendary historical figures within their...more

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Jul 18, 2008 Amir rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

مترجم: نجف دریابندری. تعداد صفحات کتاب: 280 صفحه.
در این کتاب نویسنده آمیخته ای از اتفاقات و شخصیت های واقعی آمریکا در حوالی سالهای 1975 رو با شخصیت ها و اتفاقهای رمان گونه به تصویر کشیده. سبک کتاب سبک ادبیات آمریکایی و رئال هست. از شخصیت های واقعی که بهشون در این کتاب اشاره شده میشه از "اما گلدمن"، "هنری فورد"، "مورگان" و "هری هودینی" نام برد. نکته جالب این هست که خیلی از شخصیت های رمان داستان اسم ندارن و مثلا به اسم دائی کوچیکه یا پدر نامیده میشن. از لحاظ تاریخی کتاب میتونه حاوی اطلاعات خوبی ب...more

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Apr 10, 2008 Hugo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The novel opens in the year 1902, in the town of New Rochelle, New York, at the house of an upper class family comprised of Mother, Father, and the little boy. Mother's Younger Brother falls in love with the famous beauty Evelyn Nesbit, whose husband Harry Thaw has recently been charged with the murder of her ex- husband, architect Stanford White. Harry Houdini's car breaks in front of the family's house, and he pays them a visit. Father leaves on a trip to the Arctic with the explorer Peary.
A...more The novel opens in the year 1902, in the town of New Rochelle, New York, at the house of an upper class family comprised of Mother, Father, and the little boy. Mother's Younger Brother falls in love with the famous beauty Evelyn Nesbit, whose husband Harry Thaw has recently been charged with the murder of her ex- husband, architect Stanford White. Harry Houdini's car breaks in front of the family's house, and he pays them a visit. Father leaves on a trip to the Arctic with the explorer Peary.
An immigrant family, consisting of Mameh, Tateh, and the little girl, live in the Lower East Side in utter poverty. Evelyn Nesbit visits the Lower East Side, where she becomes enchanted with Tateh's daughter, and soon her visits become regular. The little girl becomes ill, and Evelyn cares for her. Mother's Younger Brother begins to follow Evelyn everywhere without her knowledge. Tateh, Evelyn Nesbit, and the little girl attend a socialist meeting whose featured speaker, Emma Goldman, criticizes Evelyn for employing her sexuality to gain prominence in capitalistic society. Mother rescues and claims responsibility for a newborn baby she discovers buried alive in her backyard; she soon learns it is the child of a black washwoman named Sarah.
One night, Sarah leaves the house to attend an event at which Mr. Taft's Vice- President would be present; she wishes to petition the federal government on Coalhouse's behalf. However, the secret service men hit her hard in the chest; she soon grows ill and dies. Coalhouse and his followers cause an explosion at the Emerald Isle firehouse, killing four volunteers. Father and Mother's Younger Brother fight over the situation, and Mother's Younger Brother leaves the household to join Coalhouse and his followers. Mother and Father move to Atlantic City to escape the scrutiny of the townspeople. Willie Conklin also begins to feel a lot of pressure to leave town. Mother and Father meet Tateh in Atlantic City, and the little boy and the little girl soon begin to spend a lot of time together.
Coalhouse and his followers break into the library of J.P. Morgan, who is abroad at the time. The District Attorney Charles S. Whitman calls Coalhouse, who reiterates to him his original demands that they return his vehicle and that Conklin dies for Sarah's death. Booker T. Washington attempts to persuade Coalhouse to end his siege, but soon leaves out of frustration. Father then meets with Coalhouse, and approaches Whitman with his demands, at which point Whitman presents Coalhouse with both his Model T and Willie Conklin. After his followers leave free of punishment, Coalhouse exits Morgan's house, and Father, still inside, hears the firing squad. Police report that Coalhouse had made an attempt at escaping, but he more likely made a slight movement that he knew would cause his death. Mother's Younger Brother, having secured the use of Coalhouse's Model-T, travels all around the country and soon to Mexico, where he joins revolutionary forces and dies about a year later.
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Apr 02, 2008 Ms. Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: All E6 students!

Recommended to Ms. by: Mr. De Martini

Shelves: recent-reads, english-6

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 31, 2007 Celeste Ng added it

The dust jacket on my copy read: "It is a novel so original, so full of imagination and subtle pleasure, that to describe it further would only dilute the pure joy of reading it. Turn to the first page. Begin. You will never have read anything like _Ragtime_ before. Nothing quite like it has ever been written before."

I thought this must be a huge exaggeration. Then I read the book. In fact it's completely the truth. It blends historical personages with central characters who are given no names b...more

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Apr 25, 2007 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: readloved

Ragtime is iconic, with figures like Harry Houdini and Emma Goldman featured as characters, while still being an extremely well-written piece of literature, and addressing so many of the political and social issues of the time which are, frankly, still often political and social issues today (or perhaps, more where certain p. and s. issues relevant to contemporary situations really kind of began, with the 20's being a booming time where corporate America really got its firm foothold in the power...more

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Feb 08, 2009 Leland rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, favorites, american-lit

This is one of the finest American historical novels yet written. Doctorow recreates the turbulent atmosphere of the early 20th Century through wonderful characters, both historical (including Emma Goldman, Harry Houdini, Booker T. Washington, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Henry Ford) and many memorable fictional characters, like Coalhouse Walker. The book is about America at a time of increased prosperity, great poverty, racial inequality, immigrant sacrifice, and the road to the First World War...more

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Jan 07, 2009 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone!

This is my favorite book of all time (along with "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein). Doctorow takes a host of real people (some likeable and others not), and places them in a blender with a cast of fictional charactes that represent early 20th century America. There's the Latvian Jew-Tateh--who brings his daughter to the new world in the hopes of a better life. There's the Upper Middle Class white family, and then the black protagonist, Coalhouse Walker, whose story propels the book along to...more

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May 12, 2013 Leon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Published in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, b

...more

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Apr 20, 2013 Justin Chamberlain rated it 2 of 5 stars

A mildly interesting, fast-paced story that weaves many famous people and places from the early 20th century into it. Names like Houdini, Ford and Morgan feature prominently in the tale, intertwined with several unnamed families who's paths ultimately cross in a story of love and revenge. Imagine Forrest Gump in literary form, taking place in the early 20th century immediately before WWI.

While this book was somewhat enjoyable I did have issues with the literary style, in particular the author's...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Bill rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical

Wildly Overrated (2013)

Doctorow, E.L. (1974). Ragtime. New York: Penguin.

This impressionistic portrait of New York in the early 1900’s has been widely praised as a “classic,” and has been made into a movie and a Broadway show. I can't understand the attraction.

The story is roughly centered on the life of an upper-class family in New York, but dozens of other sub-stories flare up and die down around them. A rich socialite who married for money defends her husband who killed her lover, a famous ar...more Wildly Overrated (2013)

Doctorow, E.L. (1974). Ragtime. New York: Penguin.

This impressionistic portrait of New York in the early 1900’s has been widely praised as a “classic,” and has been made into a movie and a Broadway show. I can't understand the attraction.

The story is roughly centered on the life of an upper-class family in New York, but dozens of other sub-stories flare up and die down around them. A rich socialite who married for money defends her husband who killed her lover, a famous architect. For no reason at all, she takes up with an impoverished Jewish immigrant and his daughter. Anarchist Emma Goldman appears and “liberates” her from her corset. Harry Houdini appears when he accidentally runs his car into the rich family’s yard. Sigmund Freud appears on his visit to Clark University in 1909. William Taft wins the presidency. Henry Ford has lunch with J.P Morgan. And so on, and on, and on,and on.

Toward the end of the (300-page) novel, a black man becomes enraged by an act of racial discrimination and finding no satisfaction in the legal system, turns to violence. That’s the only dramatic move in the entire novel, and it’s supposed to show America’s “loss of innocence” and rising awareness of racism. But that is pure nonsense, as anyone who knows anything about American history (and Black history) can attest. There never was an “age of innocence,” except among the profoundly ignorant, a condition that persists today.

I think the reader is supposed to be charmed, or possibly amazed, at the intermingling of fictional and historical characters. I think that was a literary innovation in 1975, I can’t remember, but if so, it is method that no longer has novelty. Charitably, I can say this literary style has not aged well.

The writing is pedestrian. Quotation marks are dispensed with, so I guess that’s a sort of innovation, but the language is mundane, the narration predictable and the descriptions full of empty abstraction. There are few memorable scenes or turns of phrase, and there are so many characters, you can’t even remember them, let alone identify with any of them, so the emotional effect of the work is nil.

If you don’t know the social history of America during this period, it seems you would be mystified by all the random comings and goings. If you do know the history, you would be stupefied by its unimaginative recitation. Children might like the book because it gives easily digestible access to reasonably accurate history, though without insight.

The acclaim this book has received is a mystery to me. It was a huge disappointment.(less)

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Mar 18, 2013 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined f

...more

The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.

From the Inside Flap

Published in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.
The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home
of an affluent American family.
One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disap-
pears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sig- mund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.
The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foundation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with afford-
able hardbound editions of impor-
tant works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-
fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring
as its emblem the running torch-
bearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-
gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.

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Feb 06, 2013 Danielle rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: too-much-sex, way-way-too-much-sex, great-googly-moogly-a-lot-of-sex, why-can-i-not-love-you

Read this book for a class a few years ago, and I thought there was too much sex.

Skimmed it again and I realized there WAS too much sex.

I'm not going to moralize about sex outside of marriage here, or sex in novels, because this isn't the place for the first one and sex scenes in novels aren't always a bad thing. Done right, they can add to the plot and characterization.

To an extent, Doctorow does this. I have to admit that he does an excellent job of revealing a character's attitudes, prejud...more Read this book for a class a few years ago, and I thought there was too much sex.

Skimmed it again and I realized there WAS too much sex.

I'm not going to moralize about sex outside of marriage here, or sex in novels, because this isn't the place for the first one and sex scenes in novels aren't always a bad thing. Done right, they can add to the plot and characterization.

To an extent, Doctorow does this. I have to admit that he does an excellent job of revealing a character's attitudes, prejudices, and beliefs through their attitudes toward sex. But he seemed to forget that there are other, better, more subtle ways to show that a man thinks women should be submissive than by having him witness Eskimo sex.

Yes, that happens in this book.

Yes, I felt like rinsing my eyes with bleach afterward.

I wanted to love this book. There are so many things to love about it. The tragedy of Coalhouse Walker. The bittersweet love between Brother and Evelyn Nesbit. The seamless blending of fiction and history. But after the third sex scene, I started to roll my eyes. It started to feel lazy: like Doctorow didn't want to go through all the work of portraying a realistic character with his/her clothes on, so he took the easy way out and characterized them through their sex lives. That isn't subversive or progressive or feminist or whatever positive adjective you want to attribute to it. That is laziness and bad writing.

What made it even more frustrating was the clear evidence that Doctorow CAN write. He can write very well. Coalhouse Walker's story still makes my stomach twist whenever I think about it. Tateh's story always makes me smile. (Though having a couple of ten-year-olds make sand genitalia when they buried each other in sand was unnecessary. Especially since this was the Victorian era.) I love the scene where Houdini shows up at the family's house and they just let him in; not to mention the scene where Freud's friends have to buy hot dogs so he can use the bathroom. There is so much wonderful stuff in here, but Doctorow's tendency to overuse sex scenes poisons it.

Would not recommend. (less)

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Jan 05, 2013 Casey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, americana, historical-fiction

Ragtime is a fast-paced read, focusing on an upper-class family and their connections to famous historical events and people. Doctorow uses a combination of simple and compound sentences plus very long paragraphs to keep the reader from stopping. Although at times it can be wearing, the short chapters give breaks to let everything sink in.

I know little about the time period, so I have no idea how historically accurate Ragtime is, but I thought it did well capturing the sentiment and mentality of...more

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Nov 25, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ragtime E. L. Doctorow (1975) #86

January 20, 2007

This is a book about everything. It is also a book that I have held in my hands as the next in line several times, only to put it down and read something else. This has been going on for over a year now. This book has traveled with me (unread) to Seattle, and on a separate trip, all over Northern Europe. Never could figure out why I didn’t read the damn thing. It’s pretty short, my copy being 270 pages.
Anyway, I finally got around to it, and it...more Ragtime E. L. Doctorow (1975) #86

January 20, 2007

This is a book about everything. It is also a book that I have held in my hands as the next in line several times, only to put it down and read something else. This has been going on for over a year now. This book has traveled with me (unread) to Seattle, and on a separate trip, all over Northern Europe. Never could figure out why I didn’t read the damn thing. It’s pretty short, my copy being 270 pages.
Anyway, I finally got around to it, and it was pretty good. I liked the way Doctorow effortlessly folded famous people and historical events into his story ala Forrest Gump. The best of the Novels of the 20th century? Maybe, but definitely a great read. Interestingly, this is the second novel in a row I’ve read that mentioned the Wobblies. I previously knew nothing about The I.W.W. before, but two in a row merited some investigation.

Wow, something that I have never done before – come back after reading other reviews and add on to my own. I had a total brain fart and forgot about the Coalhouse Walker plotline in this story (that is why I try not to let so much time go by after reading the novel before reviewing it.) This particular plot alone is worth reading the whole book for. The struggle of Coalhouse against the establishment of the early 1900s is, to me, more powerful than entire book written on the subject. I found myself admiring the man, even though his actions were completely out of line. Like Todd, another reviewer, I found myself wondering if there was an actual Coalhouse Walker (see dude, you’re not the only one). After all, there was a Lawrence textile strike. I really liked the way this book was written. I didn’t even notice until reading Tim’s review that there was no quoted dialog in the entire book. I’m sometimes a little slow. I think the fact that I didn’t realize this tells me that he is not of the “look what I can do with the English language” club of which (GASP!) James Joyce is the President.

8.0
A,T,N,J
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Nov 15, 2012 Bruce rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed this novel. Written in 1974 and sometimes considered to be one of the best American novels of the 20th century, it is a story of the first decade and a half of the century and is set in New Rochelle, NY. There are a number of parallel narratives that coalesce by the end, and Doctorow has woven them together in an entertaining manner, also introducing in somewhat cameo appearances historical personages of the era – Emma Goldman, Sigmund Freud, Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Ford,...more

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Nov 14, 2012 Autumn rated it 5 of 5 stars

As someone who enjoys primarily nonfiction, it's hard to find any fiction novels that spark my interest. When I picked up Ragtime, I didn't know what to expect, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The characters in this book, fiction and nonfiction, all stuck with me. They each represented a part of society in the 20s that was either very well-received or taken out of the spotlight. The way all of the characters intertwined with each other was fascinating, and made me wish that some of th...more

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Oct 29, 2012 Maria Grazia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa-nordamericana, romanzo-storico

L'America prima della Prima Guerra Mondiale, l'America di Scott Joplin e del ragtime, quando tutto era possibilità e il sogno americano poteva essere sognato da tutti.
Oddio, non esageriamo, ovviamente non da un nero, nemmeno uno colto e musicista, che per ottenere giustizia di uno stupido scherzo operato da bianchi che non valgono un suo mignolo, è costretto a diventare una specie di terrorista, e a lasciarci la vita.
Ovviamente non da una donna, che se cerca di liberarsi da un matrimonio umilian...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Titus Burley rated it 4 of 5 stars

The selection of what to read in a house full of books is often completely arbitrary. However, there are also books sometimes chosen because they seem to fit the occasion. Such was the case on the 4th of July week when I was looking for a nostalgic/Americana novel. E. L. Doctorow's "Ragtime" caught my eye and made for the perfect match of mood and content. In a word, I "loved" the book and consider it one I'll read again... maybe on some future 4th of July. Doctorow's unadorned straight forward...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Stefan rated it 3 of 5 stars

As far as Doctorow's third book is concerned, it's certainly a step down from his two previous works "The Book of Daniel" and "Welcome to Hard Times". Once again the writing is unique and the presentation completely unconventional. The main premise skips around between characters that are either completely made up (the Rochelle family) or editorialized (Freud, Houdini, Booker T. Washington, etc.) in a largely fictional depiction of history. The intertwining of the story arcs is flimsy and requir...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Martin rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a novel about a period of great transition in which the Gilded Age gives way to the Great Melting Pot and America’s greatest century. As it begins, the middle class is closer to the top of society than the bottom. The second generation Irish, having just gotten a toehold in America, resent the Jews and Italians coming over by boat and the blacks fleeing the South. The Industrial Revolution has brought prosperity to many, but the old paternalistic system has been corrupted. When a person...more

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May 25, 2012 Kristine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well-done. Engrossing to read. Crisp, direct, and clever interweaving of characters' lives in the early twentieth century. Three family-style groups of representative fictional Americans are followed: an affluent white family in New Rochelle, New York, with generic, rather than specific names (Mother, Grandfather, etc.) ; an African-American "family," including Coalhouse Walker, a baby and his mother Sarah, and a recent Jewish immigrant father daughter combo. Their different experiences of Amer...more

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May 12, 2012 Matt Mattox rated it 4 of 5 stars

This line sums up the book's message to me:

"It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction."

"Ragtime" is set in pre-WWI America where technological innovation, industrialization, and immigration were converging to bring about a new world that had not yet come fully into focus. The Model T shared the road with horse-drawn fire wagons, assembly-lined factories employed masses of fungible workers who enjoyed few rights, and...more

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May 11, 2012 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in August 1999.

Ragtime is about the true nature of the United States. Doctorow chooses an important time in the development of the modern USA (the 1900s), chooses some emblematic real people (Harry Houdini and Henry Ford, among others), adds some fictional characters, and uses them to say what he wants to about the basis of American society. His account is not comfortable to read; a major part of what he has to say is related to injustice. Thus we see the ord...more Originally published on my blog here in August 1999.

Ragtime is about the true nature of the United States. Doctorow chooses an important time in the development of the modern USA (the 1900s), chooses some emblematic real people (Harry Houdini and Henry Ford, among others), adds some fictional characters, and uses them to say what he wants to about the basis of American society. His account is not comfortable to read; a major part of what he has to say is related to injustice. Thus we see the ordeals faced by immigrants, the oppression of the working class, and discrimination and racism.

At the centre of all this is the Family, consisting entirely of nameless individuals (Father, Mother's Younger Brother, and so on). The writing style, which seems to me deliberately naïve, gives the impression of a world built of simple building blocks. It is like one of those paintings where everyday scenes are depicted in a small number of fairly bright colours, a sort of cartoon world.

I don't know enough of the history of American civil rights to even have an idea whether some of the characters are historical or imaginary - Coalhouse Walker, the black musician who undertakes a campaign of violent revenge on those who have humiliated him; Nateh, the Jewish immigrant artist; Emma Goldman the agitator. Real or not, they all assume symbolic qualities, representing all those like them, just as Ford and J.P. Morgan represent capitalists and Houdini represents entertainers. In a similar way, the family without names seems to represent the generic American family, the mainstay of the "American Dream".

It is with this simplified version of reality that Doctorow sets out to depict the USA. The title gives us another way to look at the US which fits in with Doctorow's themes, though this is never emphasised in the actual body of the novel: through ragtime. This music became popular at the time in which the book is set, and was one of the earliest expressions of the consciousness of the opressed which genuinely transcended boundaries of race and class. (That is why Coalhouse is so upset when asked to play some "coon music", for that is a form of music derived from black culture which has been made acceptable - by being emasculated - and which is played by white musicians in blackface.)(less)

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Jan 04, 2012 Derek rated it 3 of 5 stars

Perhaps E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime is too perfectly suited to my tastes. It has, after all, so many of those things that I tend to look for in a work of fiction: a historical setting (the eve of World War I), well-developed characters (fictitious ragtime pianist, Coalhouse Walker II, in particular), famous people plopped into the story and re-imagined (J.P. Morgan, Harry Houdini, et al), and a pressing social message (racism and classism of capitalist/industrial society). So what keeps this book sh...more Perhaps E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime is too perfectly suited to my tastes. It has, after all, so many of those things that I tend to look for in a work of fiction: a historical setting (the eve of World War I), well-developed characters (fictitious ragtime pianist, Coalhouse Walker II, in particular), famous people plopped into the story and re-imagined (J.P. Morgan, Harry Houdini, et al), and a pressing social message (racism and classism of capitalist/industrial society). So what keeps this book short of perfect for me?

Much like John Dos Passos' similar The 42nd Parallel, it's just so damn disjointed. The first half of the novel has only a negligible bearing on the latter half, which grounds itself far more thoroughly in the narrative of Coalhouse Walker. In comparison, the first half is far more pastiche, even on a sentence-level, where Doctorow's disjointed, clipped sentences seem to keep the reader intentionally at a distance. I love Doctorow's suggestion that all of these pieces are mystically, inextricably linked, and a further portrayal of that might come across as heavy-handed, but too often the famous-person sections seem like well-intentioned and imaginative but ultimately divergent exercises.

But, okay, whatever--perhaps I'm being too harsh. Really, this is an excellent novel with a few authorial decisions that simply distanced me as a reader. Even as he's writing in those bizarre, clipped sentences, Doctorow still manages to throw down some real zingers of sentences, and his observations of turn-of-the-century America are apt and fresh. The inclusion of historical figures, while at times a little forced, ultimately won me over. Who wouldn't like to read about J.P. Morgan inviting Henry Ford into a secret society of two, simply because he believes them to be reincarnated members of a superior form of humanity? All of that is gold. But Ragtime is not a perfect novel, or even a just-shy-of-perfect novel like its clear predecessor and inspiration, Dos Passos' USA Trilogy. Worth the read, but don't make the mistake of coming to it with unrealistic expectations, as I did.(less)

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Dec 11, 2011 Debbiegordon rated it 4 of 5 stars

The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is that it is not a fantasy book. Only fantasy can be perfect. I read this because JD teaches it and Berklee is performing it (next week & we'll be there). I can absolutely see why both of those are true.
I doubt i'm the first to say this story creatively captures the essence period in a multitude of ways. ...without being terribly long or packed with details.
A ton of passages & moments stick with me but I'll share just three:
#1 p.263 referring t...more

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Boxall's 1001 Bo...: January {2013} Discussion -- RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow	40	152	Mar 03, 2013 01:17pm

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