I've been really enjoying Ragtime so far, and one of my favorite parts is the writing style. We've had some discussions in class about how Doctorow's attitudes to various characters differ -- who does he treat with a lot of irony, who does he seem to like, etc. I haven't read a lot of books where the author seems to have such a big unseen presence but I really like it.
A lot of the story threads are kind of coming back together at the end of the book, but even before the plots have collided it's interesting to think about how the characters are similar and different, and two that are interesting to compare are Ford and Coalhouse. Ford appears fairly briefly -- he has his own mini portrait then has an interaction with Morgan... then his only real presence are his cars. I really liked the chapters with Ford and Morgan, though. The Ford chapter seemed to paint a (surprisingly) positive picture of the man: "Part of his genius consisted of seeming to his executives and competitors not as quick-witted as they." He chews on a piece of straw and loves animals and birds, but invents something brilliant. The scene with Morgan is really funny -- I don't know how much Ford was putting on, but I just like the idea of Ford deciding to make fun of Morgan and his weird Egyptian thing -- he wears what I'm assuming are duck boots or moccasins to Morgan's place, where he has a fireplace as tall as a man and walls covered with red silk damask. Ford uses a sort of humility and unintelligence to disarm people and achieve his goals.
Coalhouse is obviously kind of the opposite -- for example, he wears pointed black shoes -- obviously trying a lot harder than Ford with his Bean shoes. Coalhouse is polite but not deferential, and while most of the family is charmed, Father sees this as dangerous. Ford made his executives and competitors uncomfortable with his humility, but made Morgan uncomfortable -- Coalhouse seems to make everyone uncomfortable with his pride -- and while Ford achieves a lot of success with his strategy (Coalhouse, someone who probably has no idea about Ford's love of animals or anything about him, drives a Ford) Coalhouse's pride eventually leads to his downfall. The thing is Coalhouse is obviously right in being pissed about his car but to what extent -- when would humility lead to more success, and is that acceptable?
