LITERATURE: Ragtime – Finale

I really did enjoy this novel more than I thought I would, once I got over the itchy effect that historical fiction seems to have on me. 

E. L. Doctorow may not have a particularly eloquent poetical writing style, but his gift for imagery in setting tone relies on sentence structure and stark statement of appearance. He draws a mood rather than an image for his stories, just as he tells a plotted drama through the minds of his characters.  What could, in lesser hands, come off as name-dropping and contrivance comes off as a skillful weaving of lives and circumstance.  One character meets another who goes his own way, meeting someone who will eventually know someone who meets the original character.  My own incredulity was assuaged by looking at the plot structure not as a dozen characters who unbelievably manage to walk into each other, but rather at the notion of a dozen characters who are inextricably woven together by chance meetings, and then following back their individual lives and the facts that brought them together.

While as I say, this may not particularly be a writer’s book, it certainly has much to teach about writing an intricate story that holds quite a bit of action and intrigue, while pounding home a theme of society and prejudice in a changing America.

Ragtime was a very easy read and when I found myself with a full day to kill in waiting, I managed to fly through 150 pages without tiring. I’m also glad that this was one of the better written historicals I may have read and I’ve learned to stop checking wikipedia to verify fictional writings.