In class the other day we talked a little about how the plot starts halfway through the book. I was thinking about it a bit, and it makes sense to me why the book was laid out in this way. We get a chance to see all the characters’ backgrounds and how each person functions independently. All this background is the basis for which all the plot is set upon so that Doctorow doesn’t have to spend the type trying to develop each character and taking away from the huge plot that he’s trying to present.
There was a lot of talk though the first few days of reading this book about how Doctorow’s irony and sarcasm was more prevalent in the first half and then gets more serious as the main plot starts unfolding. Since most of the background chapters on the characters are small tidbits of “normal” life, irony makes them a lot more fun to read while still getting across the information. It also helps make sure that we’re thinking about the characters and developing opinions about them so that when the plot starts, we already know everything we need to know about the character’s motives. Once the plot starts with regular characters appearing and building on happenings, the story is interesting enough without tons of irony added in. Perhaps Doctorow thought that making the main plot ironic would be overkill. With such drastic change from lots of irony to minimal irony, he’s letting us see that he’s serious and that the content is very serious at this point, making us focus more.
Do you have any thoughts on why Doctorow decided to make the layout of the book this way? Do you think the book would have a different feeling if the layout was different (with the background inside the plot, no background, etc.)?
