When, in the future, I am world-famous (famous, of course, for exceptional goodreads reviews), I will not very much appreciate being ventriloquized in this fashion, which Doctorow employs on Houdini-Goldman. Our author appears to misapprehend Michael Kohlhaas, the attraction of which is not, "righteous revenge fairy tale," but rather, "spontaneous legal imbroglio," the climax of which, rather than the execution scene, is that episode in which Master Himboldt, who has just been introduced at the beginning of the sentence, forbids his servant from untying the knacker's horses. ( )

I read this one a while ago, and don't recall any details. ( )

This book presents a plot involving a disparate group of characters but most clearly it presents America pre WWI is all its diversity as well as its flamboyant embrace of possibilities, ( )

That was... surprisingly good. ( )

Ragtime (1975) by E.L. Doctorow. This is both an unusual novel and a fantastic reading treat. I’ve never read such a novel and I can fully understand why it is considered a modern classic. Capturing the feel of America just prior to WWI it tells a story about a successful New Rochelle, New York family and the events that take them from stiff respectability to opening them up into a multicultural blend of many walks of life. There is harsh racism and injustice. Of the rich floating above the strife that they cause, only noticing it when uprisings must be quashed.
Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford all interact with some member of the family while a poor Jewish immigrant makes good and rises up in the American dream. Freud dislikes America and Americans and flees the country as soon as his tour of it is over. Emma Goldman stives through rabble-rousing to make unions strong and the life of the average person better. Historical characters walk side-by-side with whole cloth creations to such a degree it is difficult the fiction from the fact.
And what novel of the start of the 20th century would be complete without Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke whose assassination was the impetus that allowed the world war to occur.
While this is a serious novel depicting many discrepancies in America of that time (which remind us of the very same things happening now), it is also great fun to read. He took the drab facts of history, and in a trick Houdini himself might have marveled over, using esoteric alchemy, created a golden story for all time. I found this novel completely compelling, to such a degree that I put aside all other matters just to bathe in the richness of this vision. ( )