Ragtime (novel)
Ragtime is a historical novel by the American EL Doctorow. He was released in 1975.
Action
The novel is set in New York of the dawning 20th century and weaves three levels of action. The first narrative focuses on stereotypical characters such as ' Mother' or ' Father', to represent the U.S. average population of that time. The second narrative is of Jewish immigrants ' Tateh ' and ' Mameh ' in the Lower East Side. The focus of the third rank narrative is the life of the African- American Coalhouse Walker, who fails similar to the story Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist in the quest for social justice. Throughout the book, step on historical figures, including the financier John Pierpont Morgan, the automobile manufacturer Henry Ford, the actress Evelyn Nesbit, the anarchist Emma Goldman, or escape artist Harry Houdini. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Sándor Ferenczi located in 1909 on a mission to the United States.
Importance
Time magazine is one of the novel of the 100 best English-language novels 1923-2005.
Der Spiegel writes in 1976 in his review of the novel: " Doctorow provides [ ... ] one of the most important yet funniest pieces of U.S. literature in recent years: a true butter mountain narrative episodes from the, as he calls them, " Age of Ragtime " therefore the time in America, the pictures started to run, so between turn of the century, then, and the First World War. "
Der Tagesspiegel relates in a 2001 meeting of Doctorow's " City of God " back to " Ragtime " and writes in this connection: " " Ragtime, " Doctorow's most successful novel, becomes a settlement with the American Dream [sic ] ".
Filming
The novel was filmed in 1981 by Miloš Forman under the same title.
Current Issue
- Ragtime. Novel ( translated by Angela Praesent ) Kiepenheuer & Petrovich, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-462-04319-8 ( paperback = KiWi, Volume 1211 ).
- Hartmut K. Selk (ed.): ragtime. English reading from the 6th year of learning. Klett, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-12-579876-2 ( German and English).
- Ragtime. Penguin Classics, 2006, ISBN 978-0-14-118817-1 (English).