Blog 2: Ragtime

Before reading this book, I had my doubts about whether or not I would actually be able to get into this book and enjoy it like some other of the books I have read. To be honest I am not the reading type. Although I have enjoyed the books that I have read, I find myself always distracted by other things and can never find time to read, or at least never make the time to read. In having to read this book for class, I found myself not being able to put it down. The way all of the characters have their own lives, but somehow cross paths, of affect one another was very intriguing and I wanted to find out more. As I read, I never really chose one specific character to keep an eye on because each character was unique in his/her own way. After reading it, there were a couple of characters that stood out to me. Tateh, was one of these people. I just found it so interesting of how when he was first introduced he was thirty-two years old selling silhouette portraits on street corners with his daughter. He seemed to be sort of a bum. Then as the story goes on, he moves form streetcar to streetcar and eventually takes a job at the wool mill and gets involved and barley escapes the violence of the textile mill strike. He becomes destitute in Philly where he sells a book of portraits and the next time you see him, he is very well off and has changed his name to Baron Ashkenazy. Then, he ends up meeting Mother after Father dies and they marry and have children. Where Tateh ends up at the end of the story was a complete surprise to me because I thought he was going to be unsuccessful throughout the entire story. I also found that his story was the most interesting because I feel like he went through the most drastic change from being a nobody, to a millionaire. The entire book made me think about how many directions a persons’ life can go, and what one can accomplish.