Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow, 1975
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812978186
Summary
This classic novel, published in 1975, chronicles the lives of three families in early twentieth-century New York. Three tales are relayed as separate stories initially, then are interwoven gradually.
The families' stories: that of rich white people, blacks from Harlem, and immigrant Jews, capture the spirit of the country in this era (1906-1915), and examine the shimmering, shattering forces that converged, evoking wonder as well as terror, in an age when everything seemed possible. Doctorow reminds readers that our life is not one "story." Rather, we are who we are because of the combination of our experiences.
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 publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 6, 1931
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—A.B., Kenyon College; Columbia University
• Awards—3 National book Critics Circle Awards; National
Book Aware; PEN/Faulkner Award
• Currently—lives in the New York City area
E. L. Doctorow, one of America's preeminent authors, has received the National Book Critics Circle Award (three times), the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation For Fiction, and the William Dean Howells medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has also published a volume of selected essays Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution, and a play, Drinks Before Dinner, which was produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival. (From the publisher.)
More
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is an American author whose critically acclaimed and award-winning fiction ranges through his country’s social history from the Civil War to the present. Doctorow was born in the Bronx, New York City, the son of second-generation Americans of Russian Jewish descent. He attended city public grade schools and the Bronx High School of Science where, surrounded by mathematically gifted children, he fled to the office of the school literary magazine, Dynamo, where he published his first literary effort, The Beetle, which he describes as ”a tale of etymological self-defamation inspired by my reading of Kafka.”
He returned to New York after his military service and took a job as a reader for a motion picture company where he said he had to read so many Westerns that he was inspired to write what became his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times. He began the work as a parody of the Western genre, but the piece evolved into a novel that asserted itself as a serious reclamation of the genre before he was through. It was published to positive reviews in 1960
Doctorow had married a fellow Columbia drama student, Helen Setzer, while in Germany and by the time he had moved on from his reader’s job in 1960 to become an editor at the New American Library, (NAL) a mass market paperback publisher, he was the father of three children. To support his family he would spend nine years as a book editor, first at NAL working with such authors as Ian Fleming and Ayn Rand, and then, in 1964 as Editor-in-chief at The Dial Press, publishing work by James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Ernest J. Gaines and William Kennedy, among others.
In 1969 Doctorow left publishing in order to write, and accepted a position as Visiting Writer at the University of California, Irvine, where he completed The Book of Daniel, a freely fictionalized consideration of the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for allegedly giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Published in 1971 it was widely acclaimed, called a “masterpiece” by The Guardian, and it launched Doctorow into "the first rank of American writers" according to the New York Times.
Doctorow’s next book, written in his home in New Rochelle, New York, was Ragtime (1975), since accounted one of the hundred best novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library Editorial Board
Doctorow’s subsequent work includes the award winning novels World's Fair (1985), Billy Bathgate (1989), The March (2005) and Homer and Langley (2010); two volumes of short fiction, Lives of the Poets I (1984) and Sweetland Stories (2004); and two volumes of selected essays, Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution (1993) and Creationists (2006). He is published in over thirty languages. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Pre-internet works have few, in any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
[It] is in this excellent novel, whose silhouettes and rags not only make fiction out of history but also reveal the fictions out of which history is made. It incorporates the fictions and realities of the era of ragtime while it rags our fictions about it. It is an anti-nostalgic novel that incorporates our nostalgia about its subject. It is cool, hard, controlled, utterly unsentimental, an art of sharp outlines and clipped phrases. yet it implies all we could ask for in the way of texture, mood, character and despair.
George Stade - New York Times (Books of the Centiury)
Ragtime is as exhilarating as a deep breath of pure oxygen... At times, the swift, short sentences suggest the pristine flicker of silent film; at others, the sharp angles and sardonic deployment of detail in Citizen Kane... The grace and surface vivacity of Ragtime make it enormous fun to read. But beneath its peppy, bracing rhythms sound the neat, sad waltz of Gatsby and the tunes of betrayed promise. History resonates with special clarity here. Doctorow has found a fresh way to orchestrate the themes of American innocence, energy, and inchoate ambition.
Newsweek
Discussion Questions
1. When the story opens, the narrator describes life in the early 1900s, noting that “There were no negroes. There were no immigrants.” Is this description accurate? What might this statement propose about the accuracy of historical accounts?
2. Why might the author have chosen to name the characters as he did? Why do some of the characters have general names such as Mother’s Younger Brother while others have proper names like Coalhouse Walker, Jr.? Does this affect the way we relate to them?
3. Describe the narrator of the story. Can we be certain of who it is, or does the point of view shift throughout the story? How does Doctorow’s method of narration relate to historical texts?
4. Why did the author choose the title "Ragtime" for this novel? What is ragtime music? What are its origins and how does it relate to other genres of music? What does it reveal about the society in which it was created? What literary devices does the author use to reference or re-interpret ragtime?
5. Why might the author have chosen not to use quotation marks? Does this affect the rhythm of the story?
6. Describe the setting of Ragtime. When and where does the story take place? Why might an author have chosen to write about this time period and these places and events?
7. When was Ragtime written? What was happening at the time? How might readers then have related to the story? How do we relate to it today? Is it simply a historical narrative or does it reveal things about contemporary society?
8. Why do you think that Mother’s Younger Brother chose to help Coalhouse Walker, Jr.?
9. Doctorow chooses to incorporate historical figures in a fictional context. Who does he include? Why might he have chosen to include these people? Does his portrayal of them match historical accounts?
10. The story takes place during a time of technological progress and industrialization. What are some of the innovations represented in the book? How does their presence affect the characters? Is the impact good or bad? Explain.
11. The quest for freedom and peace is a key theme of Ragtime. How does the author use Harry Houdini to illuminate the complexity of this quest?
12. While the characters represent different classes and races, they share much in common. Discuss some of these commonalities. How are the characters different?
13. What imagery does the author use in the first chapter to set the scene? What does it tell us about life in the early 1900s? What might the purpose be in revealing the murder of the architect Stanford White? Does it change our initial impression of American life during this time?
14. When Evelyn Nesbit meets The Little Girl in the Pinafore, she is tied with rope to her father’s wrist so she won’t be stolen. How does the author make connections between Evelyn, The Little Girl, and Mameh? Why is Evelyn drawn to Tateh and The Little Girl?
15. When Father returns to New Rochelle, the mirror “gave back the gaunt, bearded face of a derelict, a man who lacked a home.” What does this mean? What has changed since Father left home? How does he adapt to these changes?
16. Why might J.P. Morgan be so fascinated with Egyptology? Do his fortune and his collection of valuable objects bring him peace? Why do you think he invites Henry Ford to meet with him?
17. The notion of value is prominent in the book. What do each of the characters value? What consequences does this have for them?
18. Does Coalhouse Walker, Jr. obtain justice? What does he sacrifice in the process? How do his actions affect those around him? How does this scenario relate to the justice system and civil rights struggles in today’s society?
19. Why does Tateh reinvent himself as a baron? What does it mean for his identity? How does the style and imagery of the novel relate to the advent of cinema? How does this invention change our perception of history?
20. Many of the characters struggle for what they believe is right. Are they successful? How are these struggles tied in to the notion of identity or societal definitions of identity?
21. )The author uses his characters allegorically. What groups are represented? Do you feel the portrayals are accurate? Why or why not?
22. The author presents many representations of family and relationships. Describe some. Which are most successful? Why do you think this is?
23. Why do you think that Mother and Tateh end up together? What draws them together? How would this relationship have been viewed in the early 1900s? How would it be viewed today?
24. Why do you think that the author chose the quotation by Scott Joplin as the novel’s epigraph? What does it signify?
(Questions from Random House "Teacher's Guide.)