Luke's History as Fiction Blog

At least in my opinion, I don’t think Kevin added that much to the story. Well, I at least think he didn’t add as much as he could have. The only significant parts about Kevin that I can remember are that he is Dana’s husband, and that he ended up staying in the past for 5 years or so which ultimately left him feeling out of place when he returned to the present. Other than that, I don’t remember anything else that Kevin brought into the story. Although Kevin showcases how the two have spent more time in the past than their new home, I don’t think he does it any better than Dana herself does. When Dana returns home after spending months or years in the antebellum south, she exhibits the same feeling of being out of place. And, we see a lot of Dana’s time in the antebellum south, which made me understand how long Dana really was in there for. On the other hand, the 5 years that went by as Kevin stayed behind in the past was practically brushed over. Of course, it wouldn’t make sense f...

The very last lines of this book are “Time is a pendulum. Not a river. More akin to what goes around comes around.” The first thing that popped into my head when reading these lines was chapter 52... and chapter 52. I think it’s pretty obvious how these chapters relate to the last lines in the book. In the first, we are told about the questionably accurate mythology detailing the spread of dancing, the murder of Osiris, and Moses’ journey to find the book of Thoth. The spread of dancing during Osiris’ time seems to almost be the exact same, if not the same as Jes Grew. Set seems to be the basis for Hinckle von Hampton’s character, both displaying an unfavorable view towards the spread of culture. And, Osiris seems to represent the characters that are trying to help spread Jes Grew, such as Papa LaBas, except Papa LaBas doesn’t die like Osiris does. Like a pendulum, the spread of dancing that occurred thousands of years in the past and faded away, came back, then faded away yet again af...

Ragtime is an amalgamation of various writing methods employed by Doctorow. He utilizes an unusual point of view, mixes both historical and fictional events, uses a nameless family to represent a generic upper class white family, intertwines multiple seemingly unconnected smaller stories, constantly flows from one idea to another, etc. But in particular, Doctorow’s depiction of change throughout the novel stood out to me. In the very first chapter of the book, Doctorow provides an example of a changing America in the lines “Everyone wore white in summer. Tennis racquets were hefty and the racquet faces elliptical. There was a lot of sexual fainting. There were no Negroes. There were no immigrants” and “Her underclothes were white. Her husband habitually whipped her. She happened once to meet Emma Goldman, the revolutionary. Goldman lashed her with her tongue. Apparently there were Negroes. There were immigrants.” The first thing I noticed when reading these sentences was just how Doc...

As I read Ragtime, I constantly have one question lingering in the back of my mind: how much of this is real, and how much of it is fake? It might sound like a silly question at first, and I guess it is, but for some reason my head just can’t stop thinking about it. I think it’s obvious most of the plot points are fabricated, although there are sections in the story which are based on true events. But, how exactly do I draw the line between history and fiction? I remember seeing a study on the correlation between information and entertainment. Viewers first watched a boring documentary-like video, and then they were shown a more fun film that contained similar information as the documentary but with some inaccuracies. Viewers were informed before watching the second video that it may be inaccurate, and that they should take the information presented in the video with a grain of salt. They were then tested based on information present in both videos they watched, and as it turns out, ...