(I wrote this blog last week except apparently blogger did not save my draft, and I did not see until now...)
Upon picking up the book Ragtime, I was not sure what to expect. I mean the author of the book is E.L. Doctorow, is he supposed to be the doctor? On the cover of the book, it also cited E.L. Doctorow to be the author of City of God, which seemed to me to be a very crazy and even a bit arrogant of a title. But as they say you can not judge a book by its cover.
As I began reading, I was confused. Who is the narrator? The story is told in third person causing some confusion to how this person is telling this story. The narrator seems so far detached from the story, however he seems to know about everything going on in the book. In some sense it seems like the narrator is some sort of godly figure looking down at his people. I can’t say I do not like this sort of narrative, but lets just say it leaves me with a sense of confusion.
Something I do like so far is how Doctorow seems to know how to get his point across. One way I noticed he does this is by randomly having historical people show up randomly and have them interact with other people randomly. An example of this is the when Doctorow brings Freud into the story. He makes up a story about Freud which may or may not be real, however Doctorow comes out with a meaningful conclusion behind the story which can be summarized by: “America is a mistake, a gigantic mistake”. One thing you can not miss while reading Ragtime is the irony in Doctorow’s writing. After telling of the horrible times the poor had to endure, Doctorow switched things up completely telling how the rich were throwing lavish dinner parties to sympathize to the poor and “The proceeds were for charity”.
One thing that I can not just get used to yet is the plot. There seems to be no real storyline or no real main character. Everything in the book seems to be so spread out and confusing. Even though Doctorow brings to life all these historical figures, he uses them so randomly in the telling of his story.
Even though I am almost already half-way through the book, I am not even sure yet as how I think of this book.
It's definitely more of an "ensemble piece" than a traditional, protagonist/hero-driven narrative with a linear plot and "main character," but observe how the seemingly scattershot structure starts to congeal in the second half. Coalhouse very much emerges as a protagonist ("one who struggles"), and a surprising number of disparate elements start to come together. The "godlike" point of view you describe maybe has more of a design in mind than is immediately apparent.
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