Ragtime (novel)
| Ragtime | |
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 1st edition cover |
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| Author(s) | E. L. Doctorow |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical novel |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Publication date | 1975 |
| Media type | Print Hardcover & Paperback |
| Pages | 270 pp |
| ISBN | 0-394-46901-1 |
| OCLC Number | 1273581 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.5/4 |
| LC Classification | PZ4.D6413 Rag PS3554.O3 |
Ragtime is a 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow. This work of historical fiction is primarily set in the New York City area from about 1900 until the United States entry into World War I in 1917. A unique adaptation of the historical narrative genre, the novel blends three fictional American families and various actual historical figures into a framework that revolves around events, characters and ideas important in U.S. history.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ragtime #86 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The narrative tells of the interlinking lives of three groups of people.
The first group consists of "Father", "Mother", "Mother's Younger Brother", "Grandfather", and a young boy. They make up a white American upper middle class family that lives in New Rochelle, New York. Father and Brother are involved in producing U.S. flags and fireworks for displays of American patriotism. Father is represented as a character stuck in the past, but keen to make his mark in history. He takes part in the expedition that discovers the North Pole, but only joins the expedition for a fraction of the sledge journey. Brother gets mixed up with Coalhouse Walker's retaliation attempt (described in more detail below) due to his expertise in explosives. Although it is not explicitly stated in the narrative, many readers get the impression that the unidentified narrator of the book is the family's little boy, recalling the events of his childhood in his old age. The reader should be aware, however, that the piece is written in third person omniscient, and thus the narrator may not be the boy.
The second family is composed of the Jewish immigrants Tateh, Mameh, and Little Girl, who struggle to survive. Tateh is a strong advocate of the radical left, involved in the local Artist Socialist Group, and while opposed to Emma Goldman'sanarchism, he finds solidarity with it.
The third family is an African-American couple, Coalhouse Walker and Sarah, who is the mother of his newborn boy and is supported by Mother from the New Rochelle family. Coalhouse is a ragtime musician. He owns a Ford Model T. This causes resentment by some racist whites, upset at seeing a Negro owning the middle-class status symbol of an automobile, and makes Coalhouse the target of hostility. Walker's Model T is vandalized by members of the local fire department. Sarah gets killed by the police who mistake her hysterical attempt to petition for justice as a threat. After failing by peaceful means to get compensation, Coalhouse turns to violence, declaring that he will not stop until his Model T is repaired. These acts are a major turn in the novel.
By the end of the novel, the surviving members of the three families have merged into one in an allegorical representation of the "Melting Pot" nature of the nation.
[edit] Historical figures
Harry Houdini repeatedly appears in the narrative interacting with the characters and tying many details together. Other real historical characters in the novel include Robert Peary, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, Harry Kendall Thaw, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Countess Sophie Chotek, Booker T. Washington, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Theodore Dreiser, Jacob Riis and Emiliano Zapata.
[edit] Literary significance and reception
The novel was very well received by literary critics. It was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novel and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and the Arts and Letters Award.
Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism devotes five pages to Doctorow's 'Ragtime' in illustrating the crisis of historiography and a resistance to interpretation.
[edit] Allusions to other works
The first name of Coalhouse Walker is a literary reference to the German novella Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist. Many events and plot points are drawn from this story. It has been argued that this is an example of plagiarism on Doctorow's part.[2]
[edit] Film and theatrical adaptations
It has been adapted for a 1981 movie and a 1998 musical.
[edit] Further reading
- Models of misrepresentation : on the fiction of E.L. Doctorow / Christopher D. Morris. Uni of Mississippi Press, 1991' - Chapter 5 - analysis of ambiguous narrative voice and issues of demystification
- Postmodernism, or, The cultural logic of late capitalism / Fredric Jameson. Duke University Press, c1991. - p21-25
[edit] References
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