A review by jwells
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

reflective tense
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Interesting book that is hard to sum up. Although we are never closely inside any one character's point of view, Doctorow is somehow sensitive to each of the very different characters that he writes. It's a shame that we don't get Sarah's point of view. I found her the hardest to understand, and she might have been more interesting and sympathetic than some of the other characters we spend time with.

The tvtropes.com entry for this book describes it as "ridiculously detailed" which amused me. I suppose the person who added that was thinking of passages such as Tateh's train trip. The writing was closely linked to Tateh's state of mind, not thinking ahead as "Tateh took a series of trains until he got to Boston" might indicate, but staying in the moment as he took each one as far as it went, getting out where he had to, only then deciding what to do next. All of the writing in this book is very closely reflective of the character's state of mind in the moment, even though we don't get a lot of interior voice, like you would with a closer POV.  The details are purposeful, I guess is what I'm saying (whether or not they are ridiculous). It's a way to get to know all of these characters without it feeling like disorienting head hopping, as it might if we were in close POV with one character, then another, then another.
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