Wednesday, October 22, 1975
page 12
daily nebraskan
'Ragtime: ' history in tune
arts & inter teiffnnm(nsl
RagtimeBy E. L. DoctorowRandom
House, New York$8.95.
Review by Bill Roberts
Do not play this piece fast.
It is never right to play Ragtime fast. . .
-Scott Joplin
Despite being intended for a mass
audienceand successful in reaching one
E. L. Doctorow's best selling Ragtime is
a surprisingly ambitious work.
Although Doctorow throws in a tale of
passable suspense, his real purpose is mak
ing sense out of a period of American
history.
He harmonizes the life of a fictional
family from New Rochelle, N.Y., with the
lives of historical figures from the early
1900s. He uses the era's ragtime music,
such as that played by Scott Joplin, as his
artistic model to bring about this harmony.
A wide range of historical people
figure prominently in the book. Harry
Houdini, revolutionary Emma Goldman
and capitalist J. P. Morgan are major
characters. Others, include muckraker
Jacob Riis, Sigmund Freud, industrialist
Henry Ford, explorer Robert Peary and
educator Booker T. Washington.
Doctorow is at his best when he draws
subtle connections between these and
other characters, hinting at their impact on
American history. A meeting between
Morgan and Ford is especially well done.
But when Doctorow finally brings all his
material together into a suspenseful
incident (a heroic black musician holds
Morgan's priceless art collection hostage),
the reader almost feels the author has sold
out.
Doctorow tries to recreate, with his
words, the tempo and charm of ragtime
music.
Because We're All
In This Together
i
For assistance in ordering, call Tom Dinsdale 477-1 144
He describes the playing of Joplin's
"The Maple Leaf with his own intents ob
viously in mind: "This was a most robust
composition, a vigorous music that roused
the senses and never stood still a moment.
"The boy perceived it as light touching
various placed in space, accummulating in
intricate patterns until the entire room was
made to glow with its own being."
It is difficult to judge whether
Doctorow has succeeded in his ambitions.
To go from music to prose, with a light
filled room as a guide, is tricky business.
But he has done something right. The
writing is vigorous, clear and streamlined.
It carries the reader from Taft's presidency
to America's first sex goddess to revolu
tionary politics in a matter of paragraphs,
without leaving the reader feeling hurried
or jostled.
Ragtime has been at the top of the best
seller lists for weeks now, contradicting the
notion that whatever book becomes popu
lar must be sensational or shallow. It's a
provocative, expertly written novel, one
that is likely to last.
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