EL Doctorow - C/D, S/D (RIP July 2015)

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Absolutely loved The Book of Daniel, never got round to following it up. Now, I feel, might be the right time. Have you read any? What do you recommend? Is Ragtime as great as its talked up to be?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 24 October 2002 11:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Ragtime is excellent - better than The Book of Daniel. World's Fair is also worth a look.

― Zanny Gognet (Zanny Gognet), Thursday, 24 October 2002 12:08 (twenty-three years ago)

One of the million unread books I have. I have started on To The Lighthouse after I finished The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison this afternoon.

― nathalie (nathalie), Thursday, 24 October 2002 16:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Ragtime is diverting enough, but I can't say it tempted me to read any more by him.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 24 October 2002 19:07 (twenty-three years ago)

four months pass...

I'm currently half way through Ragtime, and like it very much indeed. Time for a revival, I feel.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Loon Lake and Billy Bathgate are both excellent. Ragtime is great as well. Cf. Jameson's very interesting commentary on Doctorow's style in his "Postmodernism" published by Duke.

― Jess Hill (jesshill), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:33 (twenty-three years ago)

ELD was really involved with PEN when I worked there; family upon whom the Book of Daniel is based are REAL: my college friend Ivy was granddaughter of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and I think her dad is the basis for the book.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Heh... how did your friend feel about the fact that the character (probably) based on her father was such a cockfarmer?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:40 (twenty-three years ago)

I never asked her! How often do you ask your new mates about their parents, really? V. uncool. Though Ivy is now a writer herself, has written things about this herself, and as a result I suspect she's cool with the whole book thing. Eldridge Cleaver's daughter Joju was also our classmate and I'm afraid I never had the 'so, Soul On Ice...' conversation with her, either. There were a significant amount of activist/dissidents' kids at college inc. my posh friend Amanda whose father was the blacklisted screenwriter Carl Foreman (*yes* the same AF who wrote the Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire book) and another friend whose parents harbored Angela Davis.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:59 (twenty-three years ago)

ten years pass...

Cross-posting from "What are you reading?" because this thread's been dormant for 10 years and I'm feeling fanboy fervour:

Ragtime is the first book I've read in ages that's vaulted straight into my all-time favourites. Like John Dos Passos's USA at twice the speed. Total masterpiece imo.

Book of Daniel next?

― Deafening silence (DL), Tuesday, 21 May 2013 03:15 (thirteen years ago)

two years pass...

Oh shit, RIP.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 22 July 2015 10:55 (eleven years ago)

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