Rating: 
Summary: A Riff on America at the Turn of the 20th Century
Review: Even before the Broadway musical and the film, Ragtime was E.L. Doctorow's best known work, a celebrated novel that combines the syncopation of ragtime and the literary sensibilities of a writer intrigued by history as literary device. Set primarily in Westchester County's New Rochelle but also in New York City and, briefly, Massachusetts, the novel follows the stories of real and fictional characters as they move from innocence to disillusionment, from peace time to the beginnings of racial conflict and World War I.
Because the novel contains so many stories, some as short as a few pages (in the case of Freud) and some woven throughout the entire novel, describing the plot of the book is a challenge. The author primarily follows the lives of a New Rochelle family (Father, Mother, Younger Brother, and the Little Boy) as they navigate changing times. Father accompanies Peary on his exploration to the North Pole. Mother takes in a young black woman, Sarah, and her newborn, an impulsive act which leads to the introduction of ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker and his simple demands which escalate into violence. Younger Brother becomes infatuated with the celebrated beauty Evelyn Nesbit, which in turn leads to his association with anarchist Emma Goldman. Harry Houdini's car breaks down in front of their house, and the novel enters his story as well. The family acts as a touchstone for the disparate stories of a generation. Meanwhile, the story of a counterpart family - Mameh, Tateh, and the Little Girl - unfolds in the ghetto, where the Jewish immigrant family struggles for survival. Unbeknownst to both families, their stories are linked by those of the others.
In syncopated prose that dissipates partway through the novel as the short age of ragtime gives way to jazz, Doctorow manages to infuse irony in short, seemingly unrelated sentences: "Everyone wore white in the summer. Tennis racquets were hefty and the racquet faces elliptical. There was a lot of sexual fainting. There were no Negroes." Since the novel is about the loss of the naiveté that gives birth to such generalizations, this kind of set-up allows for the numerous tales that shoot off in different directions.
The complicated novel is not demanding to read, although the huge cast of characters and the emphasis on history makes emotional identification with the characters difficult. If readers look at this novel as an Impressionistic look at life at the beginning of the 20th century, they will find more satisfaction than if they regard it as the story of Little Boy's family. The coherence of this novel comes from the brackets of an era and not from a tidy relation among the plots. I highly recommend this influential novel for serious readers and students of literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Julia P. , Miller Place, NY
Review: A nicely done historical tale of America in the first years of the last century, Ragtime takes us back to a time that is different than, yet eerily similar to, our own. Of particular interest is the parallel with the violence and terrorism perpetrated by the anarchists and wobblies (International Workers of the World) back then, whose anger at the existing capitalist system suffuse and drive this tale, and events in our own time, as we face, once more, an upswelling of terrorism directed against our nation and society.
In the first years of the twentieth century, a well-off family in New Rochelle, New York, which takes its income from the manufacture of fireworks and flags, thriving on the patriotism of the nation, is suddenly thrust into a series of events which will bring its members face to face with some of the less savory characterstics and characters of American society. Famous personages from that era (Houdini, Stanford White, Elizabeth Nesbit, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford) intermingle with the fictional characters and come together in a remarkable confluence as a proud, self-made black musician named Coalhouse Walker comes courting, only to find himself a victim of mindless racism one evening on his way back to New York City. Too proud to walk away or accept less than full restitution for his loss, he at last precipitates a series of events that bring the historical and fictional players together in a shocking moment of violence and careless killing. The characters move on despite the carnage, as America flows forward into the turmoil that will become the twentieth century, but Walker makes his point.
Despite its intriguing sense of period, the tale has some weaknesses. None of the characterizations are particularly strong or moving and the story reads as though Doctorow, having immersed himself in the documents of the period, as part of his research, just decided to write out a description of the real events as he found them, interspersing these with his imagined characters and their doings. Dialogue is buried in the narrative, an interesting technique that does work in this case though it causes the book to read more like an historical narrative than a genuinely dramatized tale of the people at its center. This unfortunately tends to make the characters seem a bit distant and vague. Nevertheless, the tale works and leaves you with a sense of having been there as we laughingly discover how the socialist artist from Eastern Europe, Tateh, finally leaves all his ideals behind to make his fortune in the unique American fantasyland of a newly burgeoning Hollywood. The implied narrative voice of a young boy who views all this from his unique vantage point as a son of a strangely conjoined family is subtly played and almost lost in the final denouement. You have to attend closely to catch it.
Alas, we don't feel much for any of the players except a profound sense of ironic separation as America barrels its way more deeply into the new century, World War I looming darkly on the horizon. And that terrorism which manifested itself at our last entry into a "new century," and which has been so nicely caught in this novel, seems to have eerily returned once more as we move again into the next hundred year span, prompting me to wonder if Doctorow sensed or imagined any of this back in 1975 when this one was published.
SWM
Rating:
Summary: Haunting and Beautiful
Review: I delayed reading this book for many years, because it sounded sort of hokey. That was a HUGE mistake. It is one of the most beautiful books that I've ever read. It makes me cringe when people describe a book using the "tapestry" metaphor, but it is really fitting here: the reader watches, spellbound, as a city full of individual lives come and go and interact in surprising ways during a fascinating period of American history. Everyone is here: the Gilded Age millionaires, the upper middle class suburbanites, the newly-arrived immigrants, the writers and singers and musicians, the protesters. Every thread that still makes up a city appears and lives and works together. We see them all, and we see the world as they see it, even if only for a few moments. The book has some funny moments and some poignant moments, but ultimately it will leave you feeling like you've witnessed some very important events.
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