Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, 18 November in Plommer A, when we will discuss E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime. First published in 1975, Doctorow’s works have received renewed attention following his death earlier this year. Described as ‘an extraordinary tapestry’ of American cultural life, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.
The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, NY, at the home of a wealthy American family. One Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. Almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears.
Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.
The book is available in paperback and Kindle edition from Amazon* and other book sellers.
The book is available in paperback and Kindle edition from Amazon* and other book sellers.
Refreshments will be provided at the meeting and we hope to see you there, but if you are unable to attend, please email your comments and your score to be shared with the Group.
*Please remember to use the link on the Wolfson Alumni & Development
website if you choose to buy from Amazon, as College will benefit from
the sale: http://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/alumni/amazon/
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