Initial Thoughts on Ragtime

I've never read anything like Ragtime. It's unlike any other novel in the historical fiction genre I've read because of it's total immersion in history. Whereas a lot of other novels are set in the past, they usually don't have as much complexity and richness in terms of interweaving the fictional characters with the real ones in the context of the time. The way in which Doctorow incorporates history into the story line and imagines fictional events for the real characters is really unique and makes for an interesting mix of what we recognize as a traditional trait of historical fiction and what we don't.

Although several people have mentioned that they don't like the tone because it is detached and even sounds a bit cynical or condescending at times, I really like it. I think it fits the content and style of the book in that it offers a seemingly unbiased view but still sounds like a literary voice, as opposed to one you might find in a documentary. There are moments when the narrative suggests something without saying anything specifically, which is the type of writing you often encounter in novels.

In terms of plot, all I can say is that at times certain events seem totally random and menagingless. For example, the mirror scene in the jail between Thaw and Houdini seemed significant but I failed to draw much from it. Another thing about the plot is that there doesn't actually seem to be one cohesive plot. Rather, there seem to be many different plots, each concerning a few characters at a time, and these plots tend to stay separate from each other. In any case, I have a feeling that very soon, we'll see that each mini-narrative will meld with the others and it'll make much more sense to us. For now, I don't really mind that there several seemingly-disconnected story lines going because they're each interesting, if not totally clear.