Ragtime

by E.L. Doctorow

book data

4,955 ratings, 3.85 average rating, 409 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		26%
4		40%
3		25%
2		5%
1		1%

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published

March 1st 1977 by Bantam By Arrangement with Random House (first published 1975)

details

Paperback, 369 pages

literary awards

National Book Critics' Circle Award (1975), American Academy of Arts and Letters

isbn

0553026003 (isbn13: 9780553135428)

description

Ragtime is America as the 20th century begins.

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Sep 03, 2008

Ally Armistead rated it:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

Read in September, 2008

"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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Sep 05, 2007

Tracey rated it:

(review of isbn 0452279070)

bookshelves: nyc

Read in June, 2006

recommends it for: those interested in a slice of life story from turn of the 10th century New York City

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:

(review of isbn 0452279070)

bookshelves: book-club

Read in July, 2007

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:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

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:

(review of other 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 م...more

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Apr 09, 2008

Hugo rated it:

(review of isbn 0452279070)

Read in January, 1979

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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Mar 01, 2008

Ms. Jones rated it:

(review of isbn 0452279070)

bookshelves: english-6, recent-reads

recommended to Ms. by: Mr. De Martini
recommends it for: All E6 students!

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May 09, 2007

Celeste added it (review of isbn 0812978188)

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:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

bookshelves: 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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Jan 29, 2008

Leland rated it:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

bookshelves: historical-fiction

Read in October, 2007

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:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

Read in January, 1982

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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Nov 05, 2009

Adrian Stumpp rated it:

(review of isbn 0452279070)

bookshelves: american, contemporary, fiction, novels

Owns a copy — Read in October, 2009

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...more 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 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 (review of isbn 0812978188)

bookshelves: 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 ...more 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 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 rated it:

(review of isbn 0452279070)

bookshelves: 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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Nov 30, 2009

Anika rated it:

(review of isbn 0452279070)

Read in December, 2009

I wanted to read this again having seen the brilliant revival of the musical version, because I had read the book before and not been tremendously impressed. Now, more familiar with Doctorow's style, I was definitely more impressed. Doctorow's style is bleak - he writes a story with the matter-of-fact prose of a historical account. As such, it is hard to get very close to his characters; although you know the stories of their lives, you never feel as though you're more than an arm's distance awa...more

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May 22, 2009

Seth rated it:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

Read in May, 2009

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

Spoiler Alert: this is a detailed summary...although disorganized, it pretty much reveals the entire plot.

"Ragtime" tells the stories of several different persons' lives during the industrial revolution in the United States at the turn of the century (from the late 1800s until about 1917). Mixing fiction with facts, E.L. Doctorow puts together a lot of historical detail about the people, the places, the technology, and the events shaping American society.

An Am...more

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Jan 30, 2010

Chris Dejong rated it:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

Wow, can this guy write. Wow. Enjoyed the book for its history of the period and how this engulfed its characters, and especially for the writing.

from the book:

Once, years before, he had arranged a dinner party at his residence on Madison Avenue in which his guests were the dozen most powerful men in America besides himself. He was hoping the collected energy of their minds might buckle the walls of his home. Rockefeller startled him with the news that he was chronicall

...more Wow, can this guy write. Wow. Enjoyed the book for its history of the period and how this engulfed its characters, and especially for the writing.

from the book:

Once, years before, he had arranged a dinner party at his residence on Madison Avenue in which his guests were the dozen most powerful men in America besides himself. He was hoping the collected energy of their minds might buckle the walls of his home. Rockefeller startled him with the news that he was chronically constipated and did a lot of his thinking on the toilet. Carnegie dozed over his brandy. Harriman uttered inanities. Gathered in this one room the business elite could think of nothing to say. How they appalled him. How his heart quaked. He heard through his brain the electric winds of an empty universe. He ordered the servants to place garlands of laurel on every pate and crown. Without exception the dozen most powerful men in America looked like horse’s asses. But the pomposity that had accrued with their wealth persuaded them that perhaps these ridiculous vines held some significance. Not one of the women thought to laugh. Thy were hags. They sat on their large draped behinds, breasts drooping under their decolletage. Not an ounce of wit among them. Not a light in their eyes. They were the loyal wives of great men and the hard pull of rampant achievement had sucked the life out of their flesh. Revealing nothing of his feelings Morgan hid behind his fierce and doughty expression. A photographer was summoned to make a picture. There was a flash — the solemn moment was recorded.

Doctorow is a fine writer, and his recreation of the era between 1900 and the first World War is evocative and persuasive. He communicates expectations and disappointments and movements of the spirit without wasting a word, and his crowd scenes and tenement neighborhoods and picnics of five thousand are equally deft. The book has a compressed style, and lacks quotes for the dialog, for some reason,. It works, but it’s unclear why he does this — maybe to show the distance of reverie from his material, which was 75 years before publication? Several historical figures show up in the book, and two of them, Houdini and J. P. Morgan, figure as major characters. Morgan, an American financial titan without peer, who preferred Pierpont to J. P., is the subject of the excerpt above. He turned to reincarnation in his despair, and plotted to build himself a pyramid. Doctorow’s book operates on many levels at once: the style is beautiful but oddly blunt, the stories convince and move, the details and sets are a walk through a world long gone, and the characters unwittingly embody the themes of their age as Doctorow methodically unspools their interconnected lives. But this is all under the surface, and above all it is simply a good book, an enjoyable work of historical fiction, one of the most enjoyable of genres in my experience when done well like this.
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Dec 29, 2009

Sara rated it:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

Read in January, 2010

An unusual period novel, essentially plotless and written in straight forward, almost deadpan, prose but it's also full of charm. It seems free-associative at first. Historical figures flit in and out of the lives of fictional characters and the story seems content to just amble along. It's not until nearly half-way through the novel that it's true focus becomes clear and it bursts headlong towards its conclusion, but if the first half appears aimless, it also becomes quite crucial. Doctorow ope...more

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Jan 14, 2010

Patrice rated it:

(review of isbn 0812978188)

Read in January, 2010

A friend Ava sent me this book in a care package awhile back and I finally picked it up. It's a trip back to the 20th century with guest appearances from Evelyn Nesbit, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, Harry Houdini, and more well known luminaries of that time. The interconnectedness of these personalities and the way the plot is woven is awesome.

Reading Ragtime really gives an incredible look at what life might have been like during the early part of the last century. The s...more

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Jul 12, 2009

Dennis Evanosky added it (review of isbn 0812978188)

Read in April, 2009

This was a great look back into my past. I first read this book as a grad student in the '80s. It has a fascinating connection to Heinrich Kleist's novelle "Michael Kohlhaas." Coalhouse Walker's similarity to Kohlhaas (see the similarity in names?) is fascinating. Doctorow also borrowed Kleist's writing style: lots of run-on paragraphs and no quotation marks. I recently gave a talk to the folks at Alameda Civic Light Opera about Alameda in 1902. (They're putting on Ragtime this summer)...more

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"His life was absurd. He went all over the world accepting all kinds of bondage and escaping. He was roped to a chair. He escaped. He was chained to a ladder. He escaped. He was handcuffed, his legs were put in irons, he was tied up in a strait jacket and put in a locked cabinet. He escaped. He escaped from bank vaults, nailed-up barrels, sewn mailbags; he escaped from a zinc-lined Knabe piano case, a giant football, a galvanized iron boiler, a rolltop desk, a sausage skin. His escapes were mystifying because he never damaged or appeared to unlock what he escaped from. The screen was pulled away and there he stood disheveled but triumphant beside the inviolate container that was supposed to have contained him. He waved to the crowd. He escaped from a sealed milk can filled with water. He escaped from a Siberian exile van. From a Chinese torture crucifix. From a Hamburg penitentiary. From an English prison ship. From a Boston jail. He was chained to automobile tires, water wheels, cannon, and he escaped. He dove manacled from a bridge into the Mississippi, the Seine, the Mersey, and came up waving. He hung upside down and strait-jacketed from cranes, biplanes and the tops of buildings. He was dropped into the ocean padlocked in a diving suit fully weighted and not connected to an air supply, and he escaped. He was buried alive in a grave and could not escape, and had to be rescued. Hurriedly, they dug him out. The earth is too heavy, he said gasping. His nails bled. Soil fell from his eyes. He was drained of color and couldn't stand. His assistant threw up. Houdini wheezed and sputtered. He coughed blood. They cleaned him off and took him back to the hotel. Today, nearly fifty years since his death, the audience for escapes is even larger." — 1 person liked it

"It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction." — 3 people liked it

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