Ryan Koch - Ragtime

The appeal of Ragtime, personally, was the musical, which I was introduced to sometime last year. Instantaneously, it became one of my absolute favorites. However, I didn't realize that this wonderful, well-crafted show was originated from a book by E. L. Doctorow, which piqued my interest further. However, I had no real reason to read it, so I put it off. That was until I noticed that Ragtime as one of the APUSH Summer Reading choices. I must say, reading the book that the show originated from is a completely different experience altogether. Prior to this book, I didn't really know too much about turn-of-the-century America, and I wasn't sure of how people lived their lives back then. Ragtime constitutes that image for the reader exceptionally. Although this book had its share of fiction, I believe it was deeply invested in truth as well. This amalgamation of fact and fiction allowed for both historical and fictional characters to seem more human, in a very convoluted way. One thing that fascinated me was the specific moment when the two worlds collide, which is when Houdini crashes into a telephone pole outside of the Family's house. Prior to that occurrence, both worlds were talked about separately. From that point onward, both fictional and factual characters of Ragtime are all part of the same realm.