Ragtime (E. L. Doctorow)

Last year, I was impressed with Lipscomb University’s stage performance of Ragtime. It was a fabulous story - historical, fun, tragic.  At the time, I didn’t realize it was an adaptation from an E. L. Doctorow novel. So when my very well-read dad loaned me the book a few months ago, I knew it would be worthwhile, and I hoped it would be even better than the play.  My hopes were realized!  Doctorow not only tells a great tale, but he’s also a wonderful wordsmith.

Ragtime is set in New England in the decade or so leading up to World War I, the time and place of nascent tensions among classes, races, genders, and political groups. Doctorow interweaves true events involving historical figures (including Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, J. P. Morgan, Booker T. Washington, the explorer Robert Peary, architect Stanford White, lunatic millionaire Harry K. Thaw, anarchist Emma Goldman, and the model Evelyn Nesbit) with the fictional stories of a white, suburban upper-middle class family, an impoverished Jewish immigrant and his pretty little daughter, and the dynamic black pianist, Coalhouse Walker, along with his girlfriend, Sarah, and their infant son.  

Ragtime - Children's Musical Theater San Jose

Each of Doctorow’s characters, real and fictional, somehow touches and influences the others, fulfilling their collective destinies. With or without their realization or consent, they all advance the cause of civil rights through a series of escalating tensions and tragedies that eventually brings New York City to a frightened halt.

Doctorow’s prose is lucid and sparse, comprised mainly of short declarative sentences that are simultaneously matter-of-fact and poetic.  It’s kind of like Hemmingway, but with a lighter touch on the testosterone.  The tone is factual, not emotional, with a subtle morality.  There is no preaching.  The events say it all.

E. L. Doctorow

Interestingly, Doctorow never gives names to some of his central fictional characters, most notably, the members of the suburban family.  Instead, he calls them simply Mother, Father, the boy, and Mother’s Younger Brother.  If I were still a university student and had to write an analytical essay on Ragtime, I’d probably make this my thesis:  By leaving the characters unnamed, the author emphasizes that they are typical for the time, not wealthy or celebrities like the others; in this way, he demonstrates that the average, “nameless” people in society influence the workings of history just as much as the big-name crowd.

There’s an idea for you students.  No plagiarizing now!

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