Ragtime Book

A ragin' feelin' I had during the first half of "Ragtime" was... oh-my-gawd, this may possibly become my favorite novel all year. Yeah. That overwhelmingly delicious feeling last year achieved during my "Where'd You Go Bernadette"/"The Godfather" double whammy was reproduced, until it, almost organically, chose to focus on one specific era in U.S. history! Ragtime is just so majestically beautiful, taking on the whole of America between 1903 & 1915, aka the dawning of the 20th century, displaying an intrepid attitude that blazes, that accelerates.

It is incredible; an accessible, long meditation, like a panorama-portrait described with broad, lush strokes; accessible unlike Saramago or Garcia Marquez. It's funny, it's very clever with its use of scales, for everything in literature is worth a mention: from a simple shadow on the floor to the features of the general populace of the great American metropolis--this novel has it all. & when the scale becomes unfathomable, Doctorow maintains one singular strand in a huge tapestry that has many strands, it seems. He chooses to fix the novel past the faux-majesties of the new money set (where Gatsby existed) and the slum-wretched-poor (the days before the grapes of wrath) in a factual story of a black man robbed of his property, his basic human dignity, and consequently of his revenge on the white cowards. "Ragtime" is entertaining, wholesome, very educational, & I would urge every American History teacher to add it to the syllabus. It describes a macrocosm effectively & the factoids are invigorating. Plus, the prose, well, it's endearing, unforgettable, good-great-amazing.