Farewell, Mr Doctorow

[SamScribble]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/b...or-of-historical-fiction-dies-at-84.html?_r=0

Funnily enough, I have just started re-reading Billy Bathgate for the umpteenth time.

 

[sr71plt]

Too bad. A solid writer and researcher.

 

[SamScribble]

I can’t remember which E L Doctorow novel I read first. ‘Ragtime’ perhaps? But I do remember being immediately captivated by the way in which he mixed ‘real’ historical facts with his own fictional facts. I thought that it was a brilliant idea. And brilliantly executed. Of course, not everybody agreed. I think John Updike even went so far as to call him ‘a fraud’. But, to this day, I disagree; history is history, fiction is straight from the author’s mind.

 

[SamScribble]

And another telling story ...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/el-doctorow-died-doorman-story

 

[rjordan]

Western have always been my favorite fiction whether novels or movies.

That put "Welcome to Hard Times" on my reading list a long time ago. Ragtime and Billy Bathgate get all the hype. An author of this caliber often has a lot of "and other novels" that are worth a read.

rj

 

[SikFuk]

I got about halfway through Andrew's Brain before I put it down. The writing style is extremely annoying. In every chapter he starts talking about himself in third person, then switches to first person, and he doesn't use quotes for dialogue. Writing like that would get thoroughly trashed around here, but I guess because he's a great writer, he can get away with it. Other than that, I did sort of like what was there. I think I have a short attention span, and I'm annoyed by "deep" writing that challenges the reader - especially when the format is screwed up with the missing quotes.

 

[SamScribble]

I got about halfway through Andrew's Brain before I put it down. The writing style is extremely annoying. In every chapter he starts talking about himself in third person, then switches to first person, and he doesn't use quotes for dialogue. Writing like that would get thoroughly trashed around here, but I guess because he's a great writer, he can get away with it. Other than that, I did sort of like what was there. I think I have a short attention span, and I'm annoyed by "deep" writing that challenges the reader - especially when the format is screwed up with the missing quotes.

Maybe give Billy Bathgate a go. It's a good yarn, a little like an updated Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield, and the dialogue uses quotation marks.