Observations

Lately I haven't had the most inspiring ideas for blog posts... Actually, make that *any* ideas for blog posts. So, as I read the last two assignments, I made a few notes in my book about things that stuck out to me. That will have to do until I start getting good ideas again. :)

One of the first things I made note of was on page 275, during the scene in which Coalhouse occupies Morgan's library. The DA is on the phone with Coalhouse as Coalhouse is issuing his demands, and what I noticed was about halfway through the main paragraph on that page is that the DA gives Coalhouse the first sound advice that he's been given during this situation. No one actually stops to think about what Coalhouse is feeling or tries to speak rationally to him. They either fully sympathize with him and join his ranks as Younger Brother does, or they are completely against him. The DA, however, upon hearing Coalhouse's wish to have Conklin turned over "to [his] justice," says, "you know that I as an officer of the court could never give over to you for sentencing outside the law a man who has not had due process. That puts me in an untenable position." I really appreciated this conversation because, really, Coalhouse needs to get that fact through his mind. There is no way that they're just going to let him have Conklin, and I feel like the sooner he realizes that, the sooner they can come to a realistic compromise. I thought it was nice that, instead of saying, No of course I can't do that; are you crazy?? The DA actually talks to him like an adult and says that really, he can't do what Coalhouse is asking.

My second observation is unrelated and on page 277. This was just a small thing, but I thought it was very striking. At the beginning of the first full paragraph, Emma Goldman is being taken off to jail, precautionarily, and Doctorow continues to say, "Goldman did not know of course that one of the Coalhouse band was the young man she had pitied as the bourgeois lover of an infamous whore." This sentence sort of runs on a bit, and holds a lot of information, touching on many subjects and people: Goldman, Coalhouse, Evelyn, bourgeois-ness, etc. I think this sentence is really representative of Ragtime as a whole, in a post-modernist sense; the book is really a mash-up of all of these topics, concepts, people, and events, thrown together to create a fictional story. This sentence captures the haphazardness of the style, and I thought it was amusing to see not exactly a summary, but a snapshot of the book in this one sentence.

Third and finally, on page 287, when father has been brought into the negotiations with Coalhouse and his men, and father realizes that "the situations was ready to be negotiated." Doctorow says, "It was father's opinion, furthermore, that since Sarah's death Coalhouse Walker's most fervent wish was to die." This immediately reminded me of Houdini's attraction to more and more dangerous illusions and situations to escape from. The narrator, in that case, attributes this to a subconscious wish to die, after his mother has died. I thought it interesting that this thought-pattern comes up twice in this book, once fictionally, and once "historically-fictionally." Although, it's interesting to note that in each case, this "wish" for death cause each man to do amazing (not necessarily in a good way) things, because at this point, what have they to fear? I think this ties in really well to Younger Brother's narrative: wanting to find a cause worth dying for. While never explicitly said, I think that's definitely Younger Brother's story.

Anyway, those were my observations!