As the first book in History as Fiction, Ragtime has been an enjoyable read. One aspect of Doctorow’s writing that I found particularly interesting is his seemingly complete control over the story. One theme that pops up time and time again in Ragtime is that of complete coincidence. Doctorow presents these remarkable concurrence of events in such a matter-of-fact way that, as a reader, we’ve almost become desensitized to it.
Doctorow shows his control early in the story when the little boy has a surprise encounter with Harry Houdini. Doctorow begins by explaining the little boy’s interest in Houdini, followed by a description of the types of shenanigans Houdini gets himself into. As I was reading this part I felt as if nothing was out of the ordinary. It’s quite normal for a young boy to be interested in Houdini’s seemingly magical escapes. However, what happened next was quite a surprise. Of course, just as the little boy was thinking about Houdini Doctorow manages to bring him into the story. For some reason Houdini’s car is coming up the same street that the little boy is on and by some supernatural force, the car swerves and crashes right next to the house. As the boy describes the car, he says “It had brass head-lamps in front of the radiator and brass side lamps over the fenders. It had tufted upholstery and double side entrances. It did not appear to be damaged.” By some miracle, the car is aesthetically flawless but unable to continue, thus Houdini must stop at the house and interact with the little boy and his family. At the end of the chapter, as Houdini is leaving, the boy yells something seemingly nonsensical: “Warn the Duke, the little boy said. Then he ran off.” As I read the story, I felt suspicious that the boy’s words would relate to something later in the story and of course, Houdini meets the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in chapter 13.
Doctorow seems to have a playful approach in blending history and fiction. He takes historical figures such as Houdini and the Archduke and puts them in ridiculous and sometimes coincidental, yet still possible, situations. It’s completely possible for Houdini to have been driving through Westchester looking to buy property, and it’s just as possible that he meets the Archduke. Despite this, you can’t help but think it’s fake and yet it’s quite hard to disprove. He breaks no obvious rules of the world. As we discussed in class history does not cover everything that has ever happened in the world and Doctorow seems to play on this by presenting small details that history glances over.
I had forgotten that the little boy told Houdini to "warn the Duke" and it's very odd how this links up to Houdini's small connection with the assassinated Archduke. In fiction, some level of coincidence seems to be necessary in order to have interesting things happen and this appears to be happening a lot in Ragtime. Doctorow is using this element as another tool for expressing irony and also making the reader question history, as you've touched on in this post.
ReplyDeleteI think it's really interesting how Doctorow plays on the saying "it's a small world," but takes it to the extreme. Like you said, events such as Doctorow and the little boy meeting could have actually happened, but the actually probability is slim to none. It kind of makes you like how may people we could actually be connected to in our world today without even realizing it.
ReplyDeleteI think your final point shows how well Doctorow does historical fiction, with indistinguishable events. These coincidences seem inconceivable in print, but are perhaps more plausible than we believe. I remember a study describing how humans drastically underestimated the probability of some relatively unlikely events occurring. This could be another one of those cases.
ReplyDeleteI think your blog post does a really good job of highlighting Doctorow's strength of telling a realistic historical fiction novel. It may be partially because of how he crafted his novel, but I think Doctorow's Ragtime is a testament that if you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one. Some events that occur in Ragtime are so ridiculous that you think that it must of happened. At the same time, there are so many characters in the novel that you think, "oh this person couldn't have been weird". It is this unexpectedness, not knowing what is reality and what isn't reality which, in my opinion, makes Ragtime a classic.
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