I'd seen the musical in Toronto in '96 or '97, but the story stuck with me only in the sense that as events transpired in the book I had that sort of real-time recollection of the moment. I don't remember the songs off the top of my head, either, so that's something I want to listen to when I have some time.
As luck would have it, this was awfully intriguing as a follow-up to Centennial. Both books were taking aim at American history and both weaved together fictional characters and artistic takes on real people - and that's about where the similarities stopped.
Centennial is verbose while Ragtime is cutthroat in its economy. In fact, Doctorow delights in subverting his own characters' desire for grandiose speech by cutting them off with action, having them bite their own tongues in silence, or just blurt out something quicker in place of a speech. Centennial is laudatory of the greatness of its characters, sometimes only barely acknowledging the hurt and degradation caused by the securing of wealth and power, while Doctorow dehumanizes the people and shoves the ugliness of how they treat one another into the forefront.
Really, they are a fascinating pair of books because I liked them both for very different reasons. The fact that they overlap timelines just enough also fed into the idea that I was reading some kind carnival mirror reflection of the same story.
Another great read - two-for-two in this project so far.
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