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| | Ragtime: A Novel | | | Music Style : | | Bargain Books | | Record Label : | | Random House Trade Paperbacks | | Release Date : | | 2007-05-08 | | Store Price : | | $15.00 | | Artistopia's Price: $10.20 | | Usually ships in 24 hours | | |
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Customer Reviews of This Album/CD |
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 ragtime review
Submitted on: 2009-11-12 |
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| book was well written and seller was great, fast and easy to deal with. Thanks |
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Ragtime: Entertaining, Educational and Political
Submitted on: 2009-10-17 |
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| I really can't think of too much more to add to the other Reviewers' comments who gave this book five stars. I think their observations are dead-on. If you consider yourself a history buff, this book will be a real treat. Doctorow did an excellent job describing all of the characters. There is no doubt in my mind that the way I imagine Evelyn, Coalhouse, Mother and Father, are exactly the same way Doctorow imagines them. This book was entertaining and educational. The author's preference for a more socialist style government is very obvious. My favorite characters in this story were Goldman, Nesbitt & Coalhouse. |
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ragtime gives an in depth view of the characters that shaped history in a most human and readable form
Submitted on: 2009-09-29 |
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| E.L. Doctorow is a master of the written word. His stories give a glimpse into a past that most of us only superficially learn about via education or poorly written history. This book makes you see, feel and smell the air of that tumultuous time. |
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 Interesting but not compelling
Submitted on: 2009-09-24 |
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| Ragtime has many stories. There are many places that it could have gone that would have been a lot more interesting. It was scattered. It didn't seem to make a real point. It was not as well written as Billy Bathgate and just doesn't pull you in. I finished it because I started. I started it because it was on my shelf (got it at a book swap for cents). But I would not recommend it to my friends. |
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 Pretentious, Vulgar and Profane
Submitted on: 2009-08-10 |
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This book can be described as pretentious, vulgar and profane. I cannot recall the last time I read a book so poorly conceived.
This book has several problems. For example, who was telling the story? Some of the remarks the narrator makes suggests he or she is another child or another sibling, but there isn't one. Doctorow cannot figure out which version of the word "mustache" he wants to use when describing the mustache of an individual man. He switches back forth at random between "mustache" and "mustaches". It's almost as if the book was a collaborative effort. The first 2/3rds of the book wanders back and forth between sounding like a British school girl wrote it and an adult wrote it. Many times he employs arcane words but uses them in the wrong sense. Then, it seems like the last third of the book is written in a modern tone without the arcane words. As if his publisher told him to hurry up because the book is due at the press in a week's time. Furthermore, couldn't Doctorow come up with any real names for Mother, Father, little boy and little girl?
There are very distasteful things Doctorow writes of that lend nothing to the story. One gross deviation from historical fact that even went beyond artistic license was suggesting that Abraham Lincoln and Harry Houdini had Oedipus complex by calling them "mother lovers". Another disturbing fact is Doctorow's fixation on the breasts of the little Jewish girl; probably 11 or 12 years old. In the story, he adds in descriptions of the little girls breasts, or what someone does to them, when it's not the least bit called for. Furthermore, it's disgusting the way Doctorow tries to sensualize the encounters between Evelyn Nesbit and the little girl, Emma Goldman and Evelyn Nesbit, Younger Brother's encounter with Evelyn Nesbit and Emma Goldman and then what Father observed of the Eskimos while on his North Pole Exploration. I'm sure he thought he was trying to capture Americans in 1903 coming to know their sexuality. I think Doctorow was finding his own.
Two key characters were so underdeveloped that their behavior was hard to understand. For example, with few exceptions, Younger Brother spoke very little throughout the book and only seemed to react to things that happened to him. Doctorow failed to show why Little Brother became so interested in Coalhouse Walker's plight that he shaved his head and "mustaches", adopted a blackface, became a terrorist and then went to Mexico to join the fight for Mexico's independence. I wonder where he learned Spanish well enough to do that?
Sarah is another poorly developed character. She barely speaks at all. What was her motive to attempt to kill her baby? Why should she hate Coalhouse Walker so much? Didn't Mother notice she came to work at her house pregnant and left not so pregnant? The relationship between Coalhouse Walker and Sarah gets better after he takes her on a few dates?
Finally, Doctorow makes a few feeble attempts to show how horribly racist and hateful whites were against blacks and Jews by plopping a few statistics here and there but his story doesn't support his stats. For example Sarah wasn't hauled off by the police after attempted murder although his stats would have us believe she would have been lynched. The whole Coalhouse Walker saga is a ridiculous heap and totally removed from fact. Again, it doesn't support Doctorow's assertion of racial barriers in America in 1902.
It's sad that some educators want to use this horrible book in class. They are doing a disservice to their students! |
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