History as Fiction- Eliza

     If I were to read Kindred with no knowledge of the time it was written, I would have placed it squarely in the 2000s, maybe even 2010s. I would have thought “what a well researched portrait of the 1970s and 1800s”. The sentence structure, the element of hyper-detail, emotional description, and the quintessentially modern feel of the work would have immediately thrown me off from its real publication date of 1979. It lies in such contrast to  other science fiction novels I've read, specifically in its depth with regards to emotional matters, and I think it is that factor that makes it such a revolutionary piece (my main body of reference is Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, Jules Verne, and Andy Weir, though I’m pretty sure the theme holds at least relatively well among other writers).  I personally wouldn’t choose to consume media in this style on my own. It doesn’t appeal to me, and I think now it’s perhaps overdone (but that’s of course a matter of personal o...

 While struggling through Mumbo Jumbo, with all of its unconventional quirks and additions, I began to think it would be much easier to simply understand each choice with regard to its writing and composition as intentional. Why are there two chapter 52s? Why is there a chapter before the publishing information? Why are there pictures that often don’t directly relate to the contents? I really can’t say, but I convinced myself there is a distinct reason, even if that reason is as simple as “for the sake of rebellion”. I still think much of the time that quality of ordered chaos and purposeful orchestration on behalf of Reed is what makes Mumbo Jumbo such a revolutionary piece.  Naturally then, in chapter 51 when the background music to the fake Harlem Renaissance celebration party was a Chopin piece, I guessed that there could be a reason for this- a sort of hint for people with music history knowledge to understand the intentions of this phony party, even if in the most subt...

    Perhaps the most vibrant aspect of any narrative is its characters. The same is of course true with Ragtime. When discussing said characters in class, we seemed to say they fall into two categorizations, those who are "progressive" and those who are "stuck". In other words, Ragtime as an era depicts a time of change and turmoil and we separated those which embraced or propelled the change, from those who were resistant to it. For example, Younger Brother and Father are perhaps two of the most stark examples of the contrast between the two subsections. I wanted to examine how women and men line up in the two categories, and whether or not we see some patterns emerge. I've compiled a list down below of some of the male and female characters in Ragtime with the category I think they fall into (if any) in parenthesis.  Men:  - Father (stuck)  - Younger Brother (progressive)  - Grandfather (stuck- I think?)  - Tateh (progressive- at least...

      As we read Ragtime, with all its parallel narratives and unexpected plot points, there are items and characters we can point to as being real. Many of the places we’re visiting, the people we’re meeting, and even the ships named (as far as I can tell, don’t check me too hard on that one), really existed or still exist. New Rochelle in New York, Harry Houdini, President Howard Taft, Sigmund Freud, Madison Avenue, Carl Jung, and John D. Rockefeller for example. They are in a sense pre-made characters and settings for Doctorow to work with, and the heavy lifting of writing and character development is mostly done for him by history. The description he does add, for example the way he depicts Taft’s enormous size, is only for literary play or to tie into a larger point he’s making. Writing in this way puts his opinions and the actions of the characters at the forefront of the narrative.       In addition to places and people however, the reader will ...