Teo "Teo" Chemla's History as a Fiction blog post by Teo

  Mumbo Jumbo has to be, without a doubt, the weirdest, craziest, stupid book I have ever read. However, there is a lot of social commentary intertwined with the odd plot. One thing I picked up on was Ishmael Reed's constant satorization of white people, which I thought was kind of funny and pretty interesting. Ishmael Reed often makes fun of white people, almost to a point where it becomes offensive at some point. I think that Reed is basically inviting white people to be offended when he includes the point of view of people in Africa when white colonizers first entered Africa. PaPa LaBas comes across some lampoons in Abdul's office. He shows the point of view of the African people, and they go in on the appearance of white people. They say their skin looks like chalk and they are depicted as ridiculously ugly. The Africans had a great sense of humor which the Christians stamped out and instead brought "glumness, depression, surliness, cynicism, malice without artfulness...

During our discussions in class there was much heated debate about the ending of Ragtime. Some enjoyed it and saw it is a clever way to end the story, while for others it left a lot to be desired. A lot of people complained, saying the ending was rushed and didn't provide a satisfying ending to some major characters in the book. Others defended it saying that it was just a way for Doctorow to show how the era of Ragtime is over at this point, and that it signifies the continuation in time past the book. While the ending can leave a lot to be desired, I think that Doctorow does this on purpose and isn't just a "bad ending". Doctorow cuts off a lot of the main characters quite mercilessly, quickly skimming through how each character dies. Of course this leaves the reader feeling very unsatisfied, but I think that Doctorow uses this to show how "life goes on". We fell in love with the characters and felt they needed better closure, but in real life, people don...

  Ragtime  by E.L. Doctorow has a very unique style, one that I haven't seen used in any other book. I would characterize this book as historical fiction, but unlike other books in this genre, it intertwines real characters with fictional characters, and also makes real characters interact with other real characters, although those interactions never actually happened (as far as we know). He also uses his fictional characters to link to another story about a real-life event. These are really important aspects of the book, but there is a reason for this unique style. It allows Doctorow to make political commentary or poke fun at certain things in American history. A good example of this is Peary's expedition. The Peary expedition was a very real event, in which Peary and his group of men set out to find the north pole. Doctorow ties this in with Father being included in this expedition, although he wasn't actually in that group, as far as history tells us. Father is sent hom...