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Ragtime

by E.L. Doctorow

3.79 · rating details · 9,368 ratings · 687 reviews

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 sw...more

Paperback, 336 pages

Published November 17th 2010 by Random House (first published 1975)

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Feb 19, 2011

Joy H. rated it

· 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-fic...more

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Sep 13, 2008

Ally Armistead rated it

"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. E...more

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Dec 18, 2007

Tracey rated it

· 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 making the na...more

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Jan 05, 2008

rinabeana rated it

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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

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 w...more

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Jul 18, 2008

Amir rated it

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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. ...more

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Apr 10, 2008

Hugo rated it

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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. ...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

· 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 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 charac...more

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Apr 25, 2007

Andy rated it

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

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

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 ...more

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Jan 04, 2012

Derek rated it

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...morePerhaps 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

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 r...more

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Sep 25, 2011

Mike rated it

As America feels its oats in the first decades of the 20th century, a well-to-do American family encounters- in a variety of ways- some of the tensions and outright nastiness underlying the nation’s rapid rise to maturity… there’s a narrative here, composed of numerous intersecting storylines… but Ragtime works much better as an impressionistic survey of America and Americans in the years before the First World War. Doctorow goes all out with the “portrait of an era” stuff… our fictional protag...more

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Jul 02, 2011

Sher rated it

· review of another edition

I liked this book much better than I ever thought I would when I started listening to it. At first, I was really confused as to whether it was fiction or non-fiction because of the style E. L. Doctorow uses in his writing. I have never read or listened to anything quite like it. But I soon realized it was a combination of fact and fiction, pulled together in a way that was compelling and interesting from the outset. I found myself looking people up on Wikipedia to see if they were real, and ...more

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May 24, 2011

Adam rated it

Shelves: black-comedy, heart-of-darkness

E.L. Doctorow has a beautiful style, a prose poetry that combines Dos Passos, black, ironic comedy, musical rhythms, and the ability to make history dirty, alive, and relevant. There has been some attempt to franchise this book into respectability but ignore that, as nothing can replicate the experience of actually reading this classic. Bawdy, irreverent, angry, and thoroughly eviscerating of an era commonly portrayed with nostalgia. The end of the gilded age or progressive era is portrayed as a...more

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May 09, 2011

Steve rated it

Sometime early in his career E.L. Doctorow figured out a great formula for historical fiction. He takes real life iconic figures from whatever era he’s covering and has them interact in believable ways with his fictional characters. It makes for a “show, don’t tell” scenario that brings history alive. With Ragtime, we get to peek inside the heads of Houdini, Freud, J.P. Morgan, Emma Goldman, Henry Ford and others. In the process, we learn the issues of the day and get an authentic feel for t...moreSometime early in his career E.L. Doctorow figured out a great formula for historical fiction. He takes real life iconic figures from whatever era he’s covering and has them interact in believable ways with his fictional characters. It makes for a “show, don’t tell” scenario that brings history alive. With Ragtime, we get to peek inside the heads of Houdini, Freud, J.P. Morgan, Emma Goldman, Henry Ford and others. In the process, we learn the issues of the day and get an authentic feel for the setting. We can appreciate the context and connections that animate his stories.

Ragtime is set in the decade leading up to WWI. There was a lot going on in those days, especially in a place like New York. It was a period of social unrest, brought on, no doubt, by the great divide between the haves and the have-nots. An upper middle-class family in New Rochelle was one focal point of the book, and a Jewish immigrant and his young daughter were another. Their changing fortunes were charted in revealing ways. A ragtime pianist also featured prominently – as articulate and clean as a President (sorry, Joe Biden has always seemed blunderously funny to me) until racist stupidity on the part of a fire chief pushed his buttons. Doctorow, as usual, weaved the stories together well. He was long on conflict, too, which kept the pages turning.

World’s Fair and Billy Bathgate were very good in a similar way, that is, in mixing real people and events with those of his own creation. At the same time, I’ve also noticed some common threads that have begun to put me off just a tad. For one, the men and even the young boys are often – how should I put it – carnally preoccupied. (Some might say it’s almost to the extreme of actuality.) Another repeated theme seems to be how much more fully evolved the Jewish soul is compared to the Gentile one. Again, some may say it’s a representative depiction of the true demographic, but it seems a little too overt when virtually all the Jews are wise (both in the book sense and the street sense), morally superior, and rife with character for having been so downtrodden. Doctorow grew up in the Bronx, of Russian Jewish parentage, so I suppose he comes by any biases honestly. It’s not like any of that particularly bothered me. It was just something I noticed. What seemed more provocative, though, was the favorable light he seemed to shine on the anarchists he profiled. Anytime killing people is part of your agenda, I like to believe you’re inviting an “Extremist” label to your cause, but I didn’t get the feeling from the book that E.L. agreed.

I’m still a big Doctorow fan, but I don’t necessarily look to him as a guide across history’s rockier political landscapes. When he’s just telling his stories, I think he’s great; as an essayist on morality, maybe less so.
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Apr 27, 2011

Samantha Sun rated it

This book was okay because I disliked how it was narrated, I actually prefer to know the all characters names. I did like how the setting was on the east coast because it was closer to home and helped me relate more. I really enjoyed how Doctorow encorporated many different stories but then reveals that they were all connected. I feel like he did a good job on briefing the reader with a bit of history in the early 1900s. It aids the reader in picturing how life was really like back then and h...more

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Apr 24, 2011

Arelis rated it

Set in New York City in the years immediately before the outbreak of World War I, Ragtime is a novel that depicts the reality of that time period with a lot unflinching honesty. Doctorow portrays a time of distinction and hypocrisy. JP Morgan is the wealthiest man in America, struggling to understand Henry Ford's proposal of an assembly line. There is also Tateh, who is a Jewish immigrant that refuses to be nothing more than a part in the wheel of capitalism. He travels around the East Coast wi...more

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Dec 09, 2010

Scott rated it

First off, the only ragtime song I know somewhat well is Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer," so that song played in my head throughout reading this book and likely influenced my understanding of it. As the book's title and that song genre suggests, the book captures the uneven progression that characterized the turn of the 20th century - roles in the family, women's rights, black and white race relations, industrial innovations. At the same time, I thought the writing and plot itself was...more

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Oct 14, 2010

Andrew rated it

I don't think this is a great book the way "Book of Daniel" is great, but it's a great book to read and damn good. It's been a long time since I've read something that was this fun. Part of that is the Forrest-Gump-Done-Well quality of the narrative, the pitfalls of which ELD avoids by not having a single character stumble into every key moment of post-war 20th century. Instead he has two families, one WASP and one Jewish, whose members occasionally bump up against real historical peop...more

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Sep 19, 2010

Andrew rated it

Bottom line up front: I didn’t like this book. I don’t think my feelings reached the “hate” level; the book simply didn’t evoke that much passion in me. I really wanted and was prepared to like this book. I read “World’s Fair” nearly 20 years ago and loved it. The difference may have been that “World’s Fair” was really a memoir. As a threshold issue, I have a bias against historical fiction. History written by academicians is difficult enough to get right, but in the hands of a novelist, I...moreBottom line up front: I didn’t like this book. I don’t think my feelings reached the “hate” level; the book simply didn’t evoke that much passion in me. I really wanted and was prepared to like this book. I read “World’s Fair” nearly 20 years ago and loved it. The difference may have been that “World’s Fair” was really a memoir. As a threshold issue, I have a bias against historical fiction. History written by academicians is difficult enough to get right, but in the hands of a novelist, I think it almost always comes out wrong—particularly when you are putting words in the mouths of historical characters like Evelyn Nesbit, Houdini, and Emma Goldman.

I’m always a little worried when reading historical fiction that I am going to get confused between fact and the novelist’s whimsy. In this “Ragtime,” I don’t think it’s going to be difficult—the plot and characters were so far removed from reality. I’ve always been a fan of this age of history—the scandalous Thaw trial and femme fatale, Nesbit, stand on their own as a great story—as does the life story of Houdini. Doctorow, for some reason, involves them in his ludicrous subplots, which are completely devoid of any ring of authenticity. I got the vague sense that Doctorow was only trying to advance his own 1970’s left of center worldview rather than say anything about the times or the people of the turn of century. I found that sort of hijacking of history to be mildly irritating.

But all that would tolerable—even fine, provided the writing was brilliant. It wasn’t. Far from brilliant, in fact. The book is full of trite unoriginal phrases like “costs a pretty penny,” “face grew red with shame,” and “touched a chord in his heart.” The omniscient POV was omniscient sometimes and sometimes was not, with no explanation of why or even who the narrator purported to be. Finally, the plot was just silly and contrived (though the Colehouse Walker plot was by far the most interesting). The end of the book was disjointed—some characters were simply forgotten. Others were resurrected and drawn back in unrealistically. Additionally, in every case where one word or phrase will do, Doctorow inevitably chooses five or six. It’s as if he has word choice issues, so he just gives the reader all the word he might of chose from. For example, “She was anxious, overwrought, aroused, unaccountably happy.” Some may call that poetic. I call it rot. One could write pages on why this critically acclaimed book is simply awful, but it’s not worth the effort.(less)

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Aug 03, 2010

Nick Richtsmeier rated it

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E. L. Doctorow mystically does here what so few successfully do: he intertwines the ficticious and the factual in a way that reminds us how distant we are from the truth. Our memories of times and places are not facts, nor are they reality. They are frescos, paintings of a former time, where the events that create themes are the ones we remember, and the ones set into marble are those that are lightposts defining a certain time.
Such is what Doctorow does with the turn of the 20th century....more

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Jul 10, 2010

Daniel rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book really deserves three and half stars. And while I understand why people like this book, I have a hard time calling it a great book. I can call it a very good book, but not great. I know many literature aficionados will disagree and that is fine.

After a while, the omniscient observer long exposition of the story started to annoy me. I wanted more dialogue especially since some of the characters were really compelling. I wanted more Houdini and Goldman and Younger Brother and...more

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May 15, 2010

Charlotte rated it

I was glad to finish the book, but now I realize how I could have enjoyed the book a lot more. I should have been playing Ragtime music in the background while I was reading. Why wasn't the book designed to play music (like those Hallmark greeting cards) when one opens it to read it?

I was puzzled for quite a while about who was the storyteller of our book. I found it irritating to read Mother and Father and Mother's Younger Brother over and over again.

Pag...more

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Nov 05, 2009

Adrian Stumpp rated it

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Shelves: american, contemporary, fiction, novels

First of all, it bears saying that Doctorow is an exceptional writer. His prose is lean yet evocative and exceptionally effective. Ragtime is a page-turner. The plot is unwieldy and in the hands of a lesser storyteller would fail abysmally. It succeeds, more or less for all the same reasons a well-wrought hardboiled mystery succeeds: the action propels the reader forward. That said, Ragtime has far FAR more flaws than strengths. While reading I was constantly reminded of Thomas Carlyle's H...moreFirst of all, it bears saying that Doctorow is an exceptional writer. His prose is lean yet evocative and exceptionally effective. Ragtime is a page-turner. The plot is unwieldy and in the hands of a lesser storyteller would fail abysmally. It succeeds, more or less for all the same reasons a well-wrought hardboiled mystery succeeds: the action propels the reader forward. That said, Ragtime has far FAR more flaws than strengths. While reading I was constantly reminded of Thomas Carlyle's History of the French Revolution. Carlyle's charm was that he wrote a first rate nineteenth century novel and expected us to accept it as history. Doctorow's failure is that he wrote a second rate revisionist history of the early decades of the twentieth century and expects us to accept it as fiction.

The greater number of Ragtime's characters are real historical personages, ranging from the sex-kitten Evelyn Nesbitt to Harry Houdini to the anarchist activist Emma Goldman, and while I have to tip my hat to Doctorow's ambition, I can't say he pulls any of it off. We cannot speak about "Doctorow's Houdini" or "Doctorow's J.P. Morgan" as we can "Shakespeare's Caesar" as opposed to "Plutarch's Caesar" as opposed to the historical Caesar. Shakespeare and Plutarch painted character interpretations of historical personages. Doctorow tells us nothing about Morgan, Henry Ford, Houdini, or Nesbitt we couldn't learn better from a history or even a period newspaper. These historical characters are utterly superficial in Doctorow's hands. The only exception is Emma Goldman, who, apparently, was a blustering, narrow-minded, pedantic bitch, if we're to take Doctorow's "interpretation" at face value. In fact, the only remotely interesting thing Doctorow says about any of his historical personages comes quite early in the novel in a five page long chapter concerning Sigmund Freud, who then disappears never to be seen again. Doctorow points out that the generation in question was, because of Freud, the last generation of Americans not to be ashamed of loving their own mother. Freud, Doctorow tells us, ruined sex in America. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly interesting, and it is Ragtimes one shining moment of the novels ability to recast history.

Ultimately, the problem with Ragtime is that it clocks in at a mere 266 pages. Doctorow's ambition was to write a grand, sweeping, all encompassing epic of the early twentieth century a la Les Miserables or War and Peace, but he also wanted to cater to the diluted sensibilities, prejudices, and impotent attention spans of late twentieth century American readers. The two conditions are antithetical and so the novel cannot achieve anything greater than becoming a platform for Doctorow's wonderful capacities as a yarn spinner. A very good, if conceptually obnoxious, read. (less)

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Aug 19, 2009

Reza marked it as to-read

رگتایم : ادگار لورنس دکتروف

رَگتایم گونه‌ای موسیقی آمریکایی است که در میان سالهای 1900–1918 به اوج محبوبیت خود رسید. در این سبک از شیوه‌ای به نام صدای بَمِ راونده (walking bass) استفاده می‌شود.اين سبك از سبكهاي پيانويي در موسيقي جاز است.
ماجرای این رمان در ایالات متحده آمریکا می‌گذرد. و با ورود ایالات متحده به جنگ جهانی اول در سال ۱۹۱۷ پایان می‌پذیرد.
رمان رگتايم يکي از آثار برجسته پست مدرنيستي ادبيات معاصر امريکا است . و وقايع آن بيشتر در نيويورک اتفاق مي افتد در دوره ای که...moreرگتایم : ادگار لورنس دکتروف

رَگتایم گونه‌ای موسیقی آمریکایی است که در میان سالهای 1900–1918 به اوج محبوبیت خود رسید. در این سبک از شیوه‌ای به نام صدای بَمِ راونده (walking bass) استفاده می‌شود.اين سبك از سبكهاي پيانويي در موسيقي جاز است.
ماجرای این رمان در ایالات متحده آمریکا می‌گذرد. و با ورود ایالات متحده به جنگ جهانی اول در سال ۱۹۱۷ پایان می‌پذیرد.
رمان رگتايم يکي از آثار برجسته پست مدرنيستي ادبيات معاصر امريکا است . و وقايع آن بيشتر در نيويورک اتفاق مي افتد در دوره ای که فاصله بين ثروتمندان و فقرا بسيار زياد بود و نيز دوره رواج موسيقي مردم پسند و صنعت نوپاي سينما.
رمان متشکل از سه گروه يا سه خانواده امريکايي زاده خيال نويسنده است، همراه با چند شخصيت واقعي تاريخي از جمله هري هوديني (شعبده باز تردست)، اما گلدمن(زن انقلابي و خطيب مبرز)، هنري فورد (سازنده اتومبيل هاي ارزان قيمت)، زيگموند فرويد (روان شناس)، رابرت پيري (کاشف قطب شمال) و چند تن ديگر... و تاثير متقابل شخصيت هاي واقعي و تخيلي بر يکديگر، هر چند در دنياي رمان بي سابقه نيست، در اين رمان به شکلي پر هيجان و فرح بخش و نو جلوه گر مي شود.
- گروه يا خانواده اول شامل «پدر» است و «مادر» و «برادر کوچک تر مادر» و «پدربزرگ» و پسرکي جوان که سفيدپوستند و از طبقه بالاي جامعه.
- گروه دوم متشکل از يک خانواده مهاجر يهودي است که سرگروه آنها از جانبداران پر و پا قرص چپ راديکال و عضو گروه هنرمندان سوسياليست است.
- گروه سوم يک زوج آفريقايي- امريکايي است به نام کول هاوس واکر و سارا. کول هاوس آهنگساز موسيقي رگتايم است و درآمد خوبي دارد و صاحب يک اتومبيل فورد مدل تي. وقتي چند سفيدپوست نژادپرست، کول هاوس را سوار بر چنين اتومبيلي مي بينند، براي شان قابل تحمل نيست که يک سياهپوست صاحب اتومبيلي باشد که از آن طبقه متوسط جامعه است.
از اين رو با کول هاوس درگير مي شوند و اعضاي اداره آتش نشاني محلي به اتومبيل مدل تي صدماتي وارد مي کنند. اما غرور کول هاوس اين توهين را برنمي تابد و در نتيجه به زندان مي افتد. در اين ميان ماموران پليس سارا نامزد او را مي کشند، چون به اشتباه، خشم او را نوعي تهديد جدي مي پندارند.
کول هاوس وقتي نمي تواند از راه مسالمت آميزبه حق و حقوق خود برسد، دست به خشونت مي زند و گروهي را برمي انگيزاند تا مسلحانه شورش کنند. همين ماجراها وقايع عمده رمان را تشکيل مي دهند.
در پايان رمان، اعضاي باقي مانده سه خانواده به صورت يک بازنمايي تمثيلي از ماهيت «ديگ در هم جوش» ملت امريکا در مي آيند. ريتم رمان، مثل ريتم موسيقي رگتايم تند و پر حرکت است و نثر کتاب نيز، با جمله هاي کوتاه و مقطع و زودگذر همخوان با همين موسيقي است.
دکتروف با توانایی و قدرتی فوق العاده آنچنان ما را در دنیای تاریخی گذشته قرار می دهد که خودمان هم باور می کنیم که در تمام شخصیت ها در کنار یکدیگر حضور دارند و با ریتم روانی که دکتروف در پی می گیرد روایت را ملموس تر حس می کنیم.
این کتاب به نوعی نقد امریکا ست که به تمامی معنا نژاد های مختلف را در خود گرد آورده است و بینشان تبعیضی فاحش قائل شده است. اما در انتها همان هفتاد و دو ملت معنا و مفهوم را به امریکا می دهند.
درون مایه :
ما برای تغییر شکل دادن محیط پیرامونی خود دست به دامان سبک ها و باورهای جدیدی می شویم تا از تعریف سنت و دگم بودن خود را رها کنیم . اما غافل از اینکه همین افکار و سبک ها نو هستند که فاصله ما را با خودمان بیشتر می کنند و تا به خودمان میائیم شاهد درونی شلوغ و مزدحم از افکار دیگران می باشیم. و در انتها به همین بسنده می کنیم که در آئینه به خود نگاه کنیم و زیر لب بگوئیم :( عجب دنیای...ای. )و به این می رسیم که این اجتناب نا پذیر است و باید سوخت و ساخت. همانند نت های پیانو که در سبک جاز تبلور پیدا می کنند , به معنی رگتایم.

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Jul 26, 2009

Daniel Solera rated it

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Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction

I read this in college for a historical fiction class and remember liking it, so I decided to re-read it. This time, I enjoyed it a lot more. The novel revolves around a family in New Rochelle, New York, and their encounters with different characters, both fictional and historically inspired, at the turn of the 20th century. Written in four parts and forty chapters, the novel alternates between characters and tells a moving story about family, justice and love.

The novel is written i...more

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May 25, 2011

Sabrina rated it

This was one of the most interesting books, I've read all year. In the beginning, I wasn't quite sure who was narrating the story, but class discussions helped to me to realize that it was the little boy in the sailor suit. The distancing view of the narrator, made it look like I was on the outside looking in on the story. I also loved how it was constantly changing stories from chapter to chapter. However, E.L. Doctorow did a good job correlating and interweaving each story into each other. In ...more

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About E.L. Doctorow

Famous American Jewish writer, Edgar Laurence Doctorow is the author of several critically acclaimed novels that blend history and social criticism. Although he had written books for years, it was not until the publication of The Book of Daniel in 1971 that he obtained acclaim. His next book, Ragtime, was a commercial and critical success. As of 2006, he held the Glucksman Chair in American Letter...more

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