9781439571392

Ragtime

E.L. Doctorow

ISBN 10: 1439571392 / 1-4395-7139-2
ISBN 13: 9781439571392

Publication Date: 2008
Binding: Hardcover
Editorial Reviews:
Synopsis:

Recounts the interrelated early twentieth-century lives of the families of a New Rochelle manufacturer, an immigrant socialist, and a Harlem musician and their involvement with Evelyn Nesbit, Henry Ford, Houdini, Morgan, Freud, Zapata, and other period notables. Reader's Guide included. Reprint.


Review:

"'Ragtime' is a unique and beautiful work of art about American destiny, built of fact and logical fantasy, governed by music heard and sensed, responsive to cinema both as method and historical datum, shaken by a continental pulse....Its central excellence is its central vision, the idea of the book, which is generative without being obsessive, original without being clever."

Stanley Kauffmann, Saturday Review, 07/26/1975

Review:

"'Ragtime' is as exhilarating as a deep breath of pure oxygen....At times, the swift, short sentences suggest the pristine flicker of silent films; at others, the sharp angles and sardonic deployment of detail in 'Citizen Kane'....The grace and surface vivacity of 'Ragtime' make it enormous fun to read. But beneath its peppy, bracing rhythms sound the neat, sad waltz of 'Gatsby' and the tunes of betrayed promise. History resonates with special clarity here. Doctorow has found a fresh way to orchestrate the themes of American innocence, energy, and inchoate ambition."

Newsweek