Will We Get to See The Babushka Lady?

I'm getting kind of tired of how this is just a bunch of men in dark rooms. And then the women are pretty lame mostly, having seemingly little to do with the bigger picture and mostly just existing as accessories to their men who are the ones who actually do important things. Sure you could argue that women just had nothing to do with the JFK assassination but I just don't think that's true! First of all, DeLillo leaves out the woman Oswald was seen with in Mexico. That whole affair leaves serious room for conspiracy. And what about the BABUSHKA LADY? The Babushka Lady is fascinating because she had filmed the whole assassination from a great angle and then disappeared afterward even though the FBI thought her footage would have been really valuable to their investigation. She was conspicuous because of the headscarf she wore about her hair that was similar to the ones worn by elderly Russian women, hence the nickname, "the Babushka Lady."

It gets weirder.

In 1970, a woman named Beverly Oliver comes forward claiming to be the Babushka Lady. She says that she thought she had given the footage to the FBI. Who were the two men that contacted her at work and told her they wanted to develop her film and would return it within ten days? And they never did return the film to her, either.

But then none of this adds up either because Beverly Oliver would have only been 17 at the time of the assassination which does not match up with the reports of her being a stout, older woman. Also Oliver claimed to have used a camera which did not even exist at that time period.

Anyway, I definitely think DeLillo could have included more women in the conspiracy, and the Babushka Lady is just one great suggestion I have. And the mysterious woman Oswald was seen with in Mexico is another.

Pieces of the Puzzle

While reading Libra, I've begun to wonder about the details of my life that would be scrutinized if I were suddenly in Oswald's place. A million pieces of my existence holding very little significance would suddenly be considered "pieces of the puzzle," and my quirks and mannerisms would be analyzed over and over in an attempt to create a coherent narrative of my life up until that specific event that brought me into the public's attention. But the reality is, we don't necessarily live our lives with a particular fate in mind, every movement taking us one step closer to our defining moment. 

Nicholas Branch's notes on me might hone in on a number of "abnormalities" in my life, aiming to sketch the bigger picture. I spent three years living in the Middle East after 9/11, which is somewhat similar to how Oswald defected to Russia during the Cold War. It would be easy to shape this into something that might have developed in me "anti-American" perspective, or a multitude of other conspiracies which I couldn't possibly imagine. But Branch was even going through Oswald's floor plans, home movies, dreams, and photos, to name a few. How easy it would be to selectively arrange a few dreams and quotes and photos to create a person with whatever slant you have in mind. Everything DeLillo has said so far seems legit enough, but I have to remind myself how complicated every person's life is and that it can't be simply shaped into a specific character. Win Everett knows this and Nicholas Branch knows this, and so it's DeLillo himself who seems to plant the idea in our heads, confusing us all the more with his conspiracy theories.

A Little Oswald in Everyone

DeLillo tackles the project of humanizing Harvey Lee Oswald in a number of subtle ways that push his readers to second-guess their original presumptions, but something I've noticed to be particularly effective is the parallels he repeatedly draws between Oswald and the other characters in the book. These other characters we find it easier to like, and so by juxtaposing similar personality traits, we're startled into see a little bit of Oswald in all of us.

The first character I really noticed this with was Win Everett. He has this fervor, this need to make a difference in the world and be somebody despite the world betraying him. All of these characteristics could just as well be describing Oswald. "There was a burning faith in this man, a sense of cause," DeLillo writes in describing Everett. And yet with Everett, we're not as put off by this desire to be somebody. It seems right. Doesn't everyone want to know that their life means something?

There are also parallels with Castro. Even if not everyone wants to identify with Castro, it's clear that he's more appealing than Oswald. He's a leader, a great public speaker, and someone who can rile people up for his cause, all traits that are the exact opposite of Oswald. And yet DeLillo drops that Castro was constantly rewriting history even as he was living it. A kind of self-narration almost. This is something we see all the time with Oswald, whether it's the Historic Diary where he consciously self-edits or him losing his virginity and recounting the events in his head while he lives them.

There's even a connection between Nicholas Branch and Oswald. Branch realizes that he has become one of the "men in small rooms," studying insignificant details in order to come up with unlikely conspiracies. It's just like Oswald who took note of unimportant details such as the floor plan of the radio factory he worked in while in Russia, as if this would one day be of some grand importance.

All of these men share an exaggerated estimate of their own importance, revealing how this one little detail about Oswald that seems so bizarre is really rather commonplace. Walking the long walk home a couple days ago, I found myself narrating my life in a way that made me think of DeLillo's Oswald character. There was nothing particularly special about walking through Urbana and yet I found myself slipping into DeLillo's voice, slipping outside my body and visualizing myself from an aerial view. Of course this was partly intentional, a sort of experiment, but it also wasn't hard to do. The experience made DeLillo's Oswald character just a little bit more relatable, at least in that particular aspect.

Rohinton Mistry's Book A Fine Balance and 12 Years a Slave and How They Make Me Think Differently About Kindred

I just watched 12 Years a Slave and it really changed my perspective on Kindred. In many ways, Butler glosses over the most horrifying aspects of slavery by creating this complicated relationship between the main character and the slave master. In order for slavery to work, slaves had to be very dehumanized, but Butler mainly focusses on the relationship between Dana and Rufus in which Rufus cares about her underneath all of his selfishness and cruelty. The other relationship that Butler focusses on a lot is the one between Rufus and Alice, in which Rufus also deeply cares about her even if he is really terrible to her.  Most slave masters had to have thought of their slaves as animals to continue living the way they did, and Kindred really doesn't capture this. In 12 Years a Slave, the relationship between Edwin Epps, the slavemaster, and Pattsie, a slave girl, is interesting to contrast to the relationship between Rufus and Alice. Whereas Alice is at least awknowledged as a human and often says her opinions to Rufus's face, Pattsie never seems to be allowed to speak with Epps and he is so possessive of her that when she goes to another plantation to get some soap (because his wife has been depriving her of basic goods), he whips her senseless. 

I also just finished reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry which is a really long and depressing and eloquent and probably one of the best books I've ever read. It follows the lives of four different people and it's mostly set in the Emergency in India in the 70's when the prime minister of India declared a state of emergency after it was discovered that she'd rigged the elections. This was a a way for her to buy time so she could stay in office. What happened as a result was a series of projects such as clearing out the slums which meant throwing very poor people out of their homes and reclaiming the property for the government, and then "city beautification" which meant essentially kidnapping beggars off the street (many of them freshly beggared after being kicked out of the slums) and "employing" (really enslaving) them to do hard labor in exchange for minimal food and very poor living conditions (with many people forced to live in one small badly built tin house without running water or electricity). I learned so much history from reading this book, and it was especially powerful growing to love these characters that were undergoing such horrors. The previous example of people being forced to do slave labor is an example of very recent slavery, and there was nothing personal about it unlike the way Kindred depicts Dana's relationship with Rufus. These people were considered next to animals because of their low caste and were treated as such which allowed the higher powers to guiltlessly subject them to horrible conditions.  In many ways, I feel like Kindred glosses over the harsher aspects of slavery by creating these very complicated relationships with Rufus that many slaves probably did not experience. Slaves usually have to give up so much human dignity, and by making Rufus care about Dana and Alice, Butler erases the most horrifying aspect of slavery.

There must have been some instances of slave masters having very complicated personal relationships with their slaves, but they were probably exceptions, and I worry that focussing too much on these kinds of stories like Kindred does, glosses over the more realistic kinds of slavery that are extremely brutalizing and require a complete denial of the humanity of the slaves in order for people to accept that these people can be treated so horribly.

Rereading Octavia E. Butler's Kindred

OK, so I accidentally already read Kindred over Christmas Break or Thanksgiving Break or last summer or I don't remember when, and I realize that's a terrible thing to do because now I know how the whole book ends and I'll probably be tempted to blurt out spoilers during class discussions, BUT whatever. I really enjoyed reading it the first time around and it was hard to put down, but now that I'm reading it for a second time, I'm less captivated. With Slaughterhouse-Five, it was the opposite. The first time around, I missed a lot, and the second time around, I discovered all these layers of themes and sub-themes and Vonnegut genius. But Kindred feels so plot-driven, it's as if once the plot is revealed, there's not much left to discover upon rereading it. I'm trying not to be a pessimist about this, because I really do think it's a good book, so I'll just focus on the major part of the book that I think is pretty neat: Rufus's character development. But no spoilers!! So, I'll just start with what we have to work with in the first few chapters.

Prologue

Although we don't get much on Rufus's personality, the really important detail is how affectionately he interacts with his mother upon being rescued by Dana when he's drowning. He clearly really loves her and depends on her, and we can see why when our first glimpse of his dad is him pointing a huge rifle at Dana.

Chapter Two

Rufus is probably about eight or nine, and he's described as "curious and unafraid." He's easy to talk to and interacts agreeably enough with Dana. He uses the n-word but doesn't seem to mean any harm by it, simply repeating what he's heard his parents say. He tries to set the house on fire because his father beat him horribly for taking a dollar (which is also the kind of baseless punishment that slave masters were accustomed to inflicting upon their slaves).  He's good friends with Alice, a black girl born free, and he shows empathy towards Dana, concerned in particular that she'll get in trouble with his father if she doesn't follow the rules. Dana describes him as likable even if "his environment had left unlikable marks on him."And he helps her to safety, directing her towards Alice's house.

So, he seems agreeable enough, but does someone like Rufus who is raised to be slave owner really have a chance at growing up to be a decent person? Dana's influence seems like it could make a big difference, but will it be enough to dissuade him from going along with societal norms that tell him he is entitled to own other human beings and do what he wants with them like his father does?

Is Tralfamadore a metaphor for Billy Pilgrim's culture shock?

The first time I read Slaughterhouse-Five, I was convinced that the Tralfamadorians were some sort of metaphor for Billy Pilgrim coming into contact with a more European perspective. The reason I thought this is because the first time he sees the Tralfamadorians, it's when he's in Europe, and their ideas revolve around the interlocking themes of collectivism and predestination that are more European. For example, the Tralfamadores dismiss Pilgrim's individualism early on when he asks "Why me?" Why anyone?And their ideas about no one having free will stray from the American dream of individuals having the free will to create something of themselves. In contrast, a more European perspective might take on the collectivist attitude of seeking to uplift the masses rather than individuals, as has been accomplished with many of the social safety nets put in place in European countries. I thought Vonnegut was highlighting the culture shock of being in Europe for the first time by making aliens of the Europeans. (That could also be a commentary on how we distance ourselves from our enemies for the purposes of war, making them so foreign, so inhuman, and so easy to kill, as if to be almost alien.)

But reading this book for the second time around, I don't really think that. I feel like Vonnegut would have dropped more hints for the reader. At best, the Tralfamadorians are intended to slightly parallel the culture shock he is experiencing and has experienced (and always will experience), but I'm not sure Pilgrim really experiences much of the Germans and other Europeans he comes into contact with. There are the doctors who are appalled by the Americans' treatment of the horses after the bombing of Dresden, and there's the merciful German "mop-up" crew, but when would Pilgrim have had the chance to learn about them so intimately without having engaged in real conversations with them? On the other hand, being a prisoner of war of the Germans must have been very intimate in its own way.

IN CONCLUSION, I don't really have a conclusion. I'm still kind of captivated by the idea the the Tralfamadores might be metaphor for Pilgrim's culture shock because it presents a side of war that is often ignored. During wars, people are being thrust into completely different countries with different languages and customs, and this aspect of war is almost completely ignored. It would be so Vonnegut to focus on this neglected aspect of war, and the way it draws out a certain level of cultural awareness. Which is very ironic considering the idea of war is to obliterate the opposing culture.

Free Will And If You Have Any You Probably Won't Choose to Read Such a Long Post Or Maybe The Moment Is Just Structured This Way

This is my second time reading Slaughterhouse-Five and what has captivated me the most both times is Vonnegut's insights on social class, pointing out the injustices of the maldistribution of wealth in America. The overarching theme of no one really having free will undermines the argument that people who are rich deserve to rich, because they haven't really *earned* anything: everything gained is a multitude of structured moments. This also implies that people who are low income do not deserve to be poor. They are merely victims of fate.

An interesting passage where we see a discussion of America's maldistribution of wealth is an excerpt from the works of Howard W. Campbell Jr. Side note: Howard W. Campbell Jr. is trans-fictional because he was the protagonist of one of Vonnegut's other books, Mother Night.

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be." It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?" There will also be an American flag no larger than a child's hand-- glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. (Vonnegut 164)

Campbell Jr. then goes on to say "This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class, since, say, Napoleonic times." This is one of my favorite parts of Slaughterhouse-Five because of how spot-on this American-turned-Nazi's insights are on America's perceptions of the poor. First of all, Vonnegut's portrayal of an enemy being very logical supports his aims to make an anti-war book because a traditional story about war would make the enemy into an evil cartoonish character that sees no reason whatsoever. But what I really like about it is how well it fits in with Vonnegut's theme of people not really having free will. I take his meaning more as an acknowledgment of how the individual cannot be blamed or given credit for every moment of their life, and that we take for granted all the things that happen outside of our power. He even specifically addresses the problem with Americans believing in free will too fully, when Campbell Jr. writes, "Their (Americans') most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame themselves." He's right: money is very hard to come by, especially if you're born into dire poverty or your mentally disabled or a number of other things that are left entirely up to chance.

This is where the true insight lies in Vonnegut's discussion of free will. Even things that we do that clearly seem to be acts of free will can be traced back to things out of our control. For example, say you're proud that were accepted to Harvard and this clearly seems the result of Your Hard Work and Dedication, but would you have been accepted to Harvard if your parents hadn't been born to wealthy parents who gave you the best education, cultural capital, and paid for your mission trip to Senegal which inspired you to write that heart-melting college essay? And being born to those parents has nothing to do with free will. And say instead that your parents were dirt poor but you were just ridiculously smart, and sought out the works of Foucault and Nussbaum in your free time to feed your insatiable intellect. But you could just have easily not been born a genius, so where's the free will in that?

Of course there's a lot about the world that is obviously the result of free will. But I don't think that's Vonnegut's point. In juxtaposition with Campbell Jr.'s monograph, he presents the case (or maybe just leaves it up for grabs) that Americans give too much credit to free will and the idea that everything we do is a result of free will. Because really so much of our lives is based on the bodies and minds we're born with. It may seem like a depressing thought, but it actually could offer insight to a lot of Americans with so little empathy for the poor. I was just watching an interview with 'Fox Business' Commentator, Todd Wilemon, and he responded to comments about Tennessee's "third world healthcare" by saying, "IF YOU'RE POOR, STOP BEING POOR." I think this perfectly illustrates how Americans act like everyone has the free will to do anything. And believing this doesn't make it true. In fact it takes away a lot of free will from people who might have the free will to make more decisions for themselves if offered a little help instead of immediately being expected to miraculously exert their "free will" and as Wilemon proposed, "stop being poor." Maybe the American vision of free will is just too individualistic and doesn't sufficiently acknowledge the power of an entire system exerting its free will to make important changes. Now I've gone off on a tangent, and maybe I've strayed too far from Vonnegut, but at least he was my muse.

Mumbo Jumbo Follow-Up

Here is an interesting excerpt from Mumbo Jumbo which shows a little bit of Ishmael Reed's discussion of Islam (Reed 35):

You are no different from the Christians you imitate. Atonists Christians and Muslims don't tolerate those who refuse to accept their modes. 

 Some of the people who were listening have decided that it's 1 of those discussions and have drifted away. 

Christianity? What has that to do with me?  

They are very similar, 1 having derived from the other. Muhammed seems to have wanted to impress Christian critics with his knowledge of the bible, LaBas continues.  They agree on the ultimate wickedness of woman, even using feminine genders to describe disasters that beset mankind. Terming women cattle, unclean. The Koran was revealed to Muhammed by Gabriel the angel of the Christian apocalypse. Prophets in the Koran: Abraham Isaac and Moses were Christian prophets; each condemns the Jewish people for abandoning the faith; realizing that there has always been a pantheistic contingent among the "chosen people" not reluctant to revere other gods. The Virgin Mary figures in the Koran as well as in the Bible. In fact, 1 night you were reading a poem to the Black woman. It occurred to me that though your imagery was with the sister, the heart of you work was with the Virgin. 

You'd better be careful with your critique Papa LaBas, Abdul replies. Remember "He that worships other gods besides Allah shall be forbidden to Paradise and shall be cast into the fires of Hell."  

Precisely, Black Herman replies. Intolerant just as the Christians are. 

This passage clashes completely with Reed's tendency to lump Islam in with this vague idealized conception of Afro-centric culture. Here, Reed presents the perspective that Islam shares many Atonist features, and that it deliberately mimics Atonist characteristics. This is in stark contrast with the part of the book where Reed sets up the Crusades as a battle between the Atonists and the non-Atonists, and makes the book a lot more interesting, because it highlights the overlap between Reed's dichotomy of the world. It leaves room for complexities and loop holes.

And Abdul seems to realize that it's because of the way his identity exists in the overlap, he has a special role to play. He tells Papa LaBas that people like him will live in seclusion and only a select few will read him and they will pride themselves in their selectiveness whereas Abdul's "chimerical art" will survive. He says it will be people like himself that will "get it across" in such a way that the masses will understand.

What's Missing From Mumbo Jumbo

I enjoyed reading Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo, and I was completely convinced that there is something very real and tangible behind Jes Grew, but I thought a few aspects were lacking. For one thing, the book starts off too Black vs. White, when it really should clarify for its readers earlier on that it has more to do with a struggle between conservatism and liberalism, or monotheism and pantheism, or elitism and socialism. For example, there's a lot about Jes Grew that can be linked to Celtic traditions: the pantheism, the freer form of writing music, the syncopation, the rhythm.

Yet the closest Reed comes to addressing that there might be some diversity of white people is in the scene where Biff Musclewhite is bound and speaking with Thor. Musclewhite, who is a Polish immigrant, says "I know you look down on me because I come from one of the European countries under domination by stronger Whites than my people. We were your n****rs; you colonized us and made us dirt under your heels." But Musclewhite isn't a good example, because he also says, "It was then that we realized you were all we had, the way you had cultivated a theater to keep us from them, a theater with scene shifts and a changing cast of characters but always squeezing out the Bronx cheer from your bought-off claque. Then we found out what you were doing. But we didn't let on, we decided to imitate you." And at another point he says, "We used to run alongside your carriages in bare feet when you drove though out neighborhoods, and you would splash mud in our faces violate our sisters flog our fathers; but we kept coming for more because we loved your beautiful cloths, your clean hair, the charming ladies riding beside you, the way you talked..."

And this passage makes any white people with what might arguably have a more Jes Grew-oriented background because of their social class or country of origin appear eager to imitate the Atonists, showing no integrity whatsoever.

But Reed also oversimplifies the other end of the spectrum. He creates this vague concept of the good guys centering in Africa and the Middle East (even though supposedly the whole battle started in Egypt), and he offers little explanation for how Islam would have anything to do with Jes Grew and yet he says in passing that the Atonists fought the crusades to further strengthen their hold on dark magic and suppress any inclinations toward Jes Grew. Whereas for every other part of the book, everything we know about Atonism would fit well into Islam. It's monotheistic, its stricter forms prohibit dancing and even music, and it shares many aspects in common with Judaism and Christianity, all three worshipping the God of Adam, stressing moral responsibility, Judgement Day, and eternal reward and punishment.

So why is Islam frequently exempt from the harsher criticism Christianity and Judaism receive in this book, even to the point where it is implied to be linked with Jes Grew that the Crusades tried to suppress? If this was a deliberate choice on Ishmael Reed's part, then I'm intrigued. Is there something that distinctly sets Islam apart and links it to Jes Grew? Or was it almost an oversight, Ishmael Reed growing comfortable in his dichotomy of what he defined to be the white world verses the black world, not bothering to look for more overlap between the two? The West has a clear Jes Grew presence with the influence of Celtic culture and certainly other Pagan traditions as well. And this vaguely defined Afro-centric part of the world has Islam which has been a growingly Atonist presence for a long time. And yet this is almost completely overlooked throughout the novel.

On the other hand, Reed's choice to so blatantly dichotomizes the world that  this novel could possibly be perceived as a satire of itself, pointing out how impossible it is to divide people in this way, and making readers more aware of the ways in which they compartmentalize entire continents to the point where one part of the world fosters a population that can dance and sing and groove and the other part creates a population that worships a "famous sacrificial White child of the Red Sect rites" (Goya's paiting of Don Manuel Osorio de Zuniga).

Next: Taking a closer look at Reed's overlap in his dichotomy of the world.

Evelyn Nesbit: The Embodiment of What's Wrong with Capitalism

From the first time that Doctorow presents us with the character Evelyn Nesbit, we know her as someone strikingly beautiful whose both profited from her good looks as well as been badly hurt because of the frightening lust she stirs in powerful men. When Emma Goldman encounters Evelyn Nesbit, she sees Evelyn as the embodiment of what she believes to be the corrupt system that is capitalism. "You are a creature of capitalism, the ethics of which are so totally corrupt and hypocritical that your beauty is no more than the beauty of gold, which is to say false and cold and useless," Goldman tells Nesbit. Goldman sees Nesbit's beauty that is so prized for what it really is: something to be hoarded by wealthy men like gold or money.

Doctorow defines the “myth of individualism” in America as the idea that Americans are “entrepreneurs of themselves, tending to define themselves by anything that points up their distinction from the larger community.” Nesbit fits well into the myth of individualism, profiting off the singular distinction from the larger society that is her beauty in order to succeed in a male-dominated capitalist world. Just as Goldman argues, Nesbit epitomizes the corruption of capitalism, being robbed of the dignity she might have had in a more egalitarian society in exchange for the luxury that capitalism promises, the same kind of luxury that Tateh succumbs to in exchange for his socialist ideals, and that Ford gravitates toward in exchanges for the laborers' craftsmanship. A little luxury is gained for the few who find their way to the top, but it comes at a huge cost for the masses who must work long hours in dangerous conditions for a pittance in order for such excesses of wealth to be amassed by capitalist superstars like J. P. Morgan.

While Nesbit lives as an entrepreneur of herself and her body, she stands for the degradation that extreme capitalism can impose upon people. The fact that there are men so powerful and rich as to be able to essentially buy any woman they want for themselves shows the extent to which capitalism has enabled the maldistribution of wealth and power. In a society which Emma Goldman envisions where the masses are well supported and the wealthy is evenly distributed, someone like Evelyn Nesbit would probably not exist.

Coalhouse vs. Kohlaas

It surprised me to realize that the well-spoken ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. was not a historical figure after growing accustomed to E. L. Doctorow's habit of bringing real people into his story. Doctorow even went so far as to specify that it was not known where Walker was born or whether he'd been previously married, details most narrators would have procured openly with ease. But what was really convincing about Coalhouse Walker Jr. was his story: the societal injustice, the longing to regain a shred of dignity, and the eventual spiral into violence in his quest to take the law into his own hands.

As I read more about this fictional Coalhouse character and came upon the information that he was transfictional, this made so much sense to me. Coalhouse's story is one that transcends a specific time frame and unites humanity in the common struggle against the incessantly unreliable laws we live within that protect only a small fragment of the greater population. Whenever one of us is betrayed by the society we have invested ourselves in, it's easy to fantasize about formulating an elaborate plot to regain our pride and demand the justice that we have been deprived of. Not that I'm condoning Coalhouse's actions or anything, but there's undeniably a driving force behind these two characters that represents the hubris in all of us, and even our simple desire to be treated with respect.

The story of Michael Kohlaas (who Coalhouse is based off of) takes place nearly a century before Coalhouse Walker Jr.'s and yet parallels it almost exactly. Yes, Kohlass has horses rather than a Model T Ford and yes, Walker is facing racial prejudice, but the fact that this story can credibly exist in two very different worlds and time frames shows just how timeless it is. It's even more timeless if you think about how Doctorow was actually writing this in 1975, and people were still identifying with the original Kohlaas story.

Getting to Know Doctorow

As someone who loves history in addition to literature, History as Fiction is the perfect combination of my favorite things. Last semester in my British and American poetry course, I got a taste of good historical fiction in the poetry anthology Kettle Bottom in which Diane Gilliam Fischer brings to life the 1920-21 West Virginia Mine Wars in a series of poems that speak from the perspective of various people in the community. Having some familiarity with the history of the mine wars from my U.S. History class, re-experiencing the events through the lens of fiction lent an insider's perspective and drew my sympathy for the miners in a way that a mere timeline of events couldn't possibly have done.

I thought I knew what to expect when reading historical fiction, considering the restrictions the genre can put on a story, limiting it within certain confines of what we know to be true about history. Of course it's possible to throw in completely unbelievable plot twists for the sake of a more engaging plot, but only at the risk of losing your readers' trust. But E. L. Doctorow masterfully stays true to the books while crafting his own stories into the mix, and somehow manages to present the craziest of situations in such a way that they can't be historically disproven. One of the most striking such occurrences right at the beginning of the book is when the little boy is pondering Houdini and Houdini crashes into a telephone pole outside his house and ends up having to pay his family a visit.  But who's to say Houdini didn't crash his car into a telephone pole and visit such a family? Doctorow even throws Evelyn Nesbit and Emma Goldman together in a strangely intimate scene that makes for fascinating parallels between the two historical figures despite Nesbit using her body to climb the capitalist social ladder and Goldman using her mind to spread her political ideals. And even if that encounter didn't happen, Doctorow makes it feel as if it should have. "You came because in such ways as the universe works, your life was destined to interact with my own," Goldman tells Nesbit. Another great pairing Doctorow forms is a meeting between Henry Ford and J. P. Morgan. Again, there's this sense that even if they never had met, tif they had, it would have fit into history perfectly.

 It was upon his [J.P. Morgan's] return to America that he  began to think about Henry Ford. He had no illusions that Ford was a gentleman. He recognized him for a shrewd provincial, as uneducated as a piece of wood. But he thought he saw in Ford's use of men a reincarnation of pharaohism. 

With this, Doctorow builds in a sense of destiny in their encounter, with Ford representing something the affluent J. P. Morgan is seeking to give meaning to a world in which he can buy anything or anyone. "Suppose I could demonstrate that you yourself are an instrumentation in our modern age of trends in human identity that affirm the oldest wisdom in the world," J. P. Morgan tells Ford. In fact, trying to give meaning to the world is a recurring theme of Doctorow's. A few chapters earlier, we see the little boy finding meaning in treasures discarded, looking at the tracks of skates in the ice and seeing only "traces quickly erased of moments passed." "It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction," Doctorow writes.
              
Yet even as Doctorow writes with this force of greater purpose that makes us believe that some of these historical figures were destined to meet one another or that his characters might have touched on some profound aspect of life meaning, he laces his narrative heavily with irony in a way that toys with my hypothesis that historical fiction serves to garner sympathy for its characters. He makes Ford seem conniving, telling us that he thought most humans were too dumb to make a decent living. He makes J. P. Morgan seem out of touch with reality because of his excess wealth, his interests in mysticism seemingly a pass time designed to help him cope with his lack of anything to work toward. Emma Goldman seems strangely paradoxical with her unrelenting judgements of Evelyn Nesbit while attempting to reach out to her. Evelyn Nesbit is one of the few characters who gets more sincerely portrayed by Doctorow, with her life described as one tragedy after the next, and the transformation of her character as she reaches out to Tateh's daughter. So, maybe Doctorow is interested in drawing in his readers' sympathies for certain characters, but he does so sparingly, and maybe that's what makes his style especially effective. But with his mix of leading his readers to believe in some greater life meaning alongside his habitual irony, Doctorow's narrative is the most difficult character to capture of all.