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Details Containing Books World's Fair

Title	:	World's Fair
Author	:	E.L. Doctorow
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 304 pages
Published	:	May 1st 1996 by Plume (first published October 12th 1985)
Categories	:	Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. New York. Classics

World's Fair

E.L. Doctorow

Paperback | Pages: 304 pages

Rating: 3.82 | 3904 Users | 310 Reviews

Chronicle In Pursuance Of Books World's Fair

Hope Is Where You Find It Doctorow's World's Fair is, for me, an important document touching on family history. My mother was 11 years old when she visited Flushing Meadows in 1939 and it influenced her life as significantly as it did Doctorow's. Both he and his avatar 'Edgar' were two years younger than my mother. New York City was (and of course largely still is) a city of immigrants and the children of immigrants. In other words it is a place of constant dislocation and dissolution. It doesn't so much melt into a pot as anneal on a blacksmith's iron. But the depression of the 1930's added a component of desperation to the lives of many that is the stage set in which his protagonist functions. For Edgar the Worlds Fair is not just a glimpse of other worlds, but rather, as for my mother, the symbol of a hope for a new world. It was almost an excuse to feel good. Edgar's father with his failing business sees it expressly as that, in almost the same words I am sure my mother quoted to me from my grandfather. The experiences that affected Edgar most deeply weren't the visions of new technologies or urban designs but the 'trivial' encounters like the archly vulgar sideshow 'Oscar the Amorous Octopus'. For my mother it was the bank of valves that released small amounts of unusual fragrances. The one that stuck in her mind was labelled, she found only after testing it, Human Gas.

Point Books Conducive To World's Fair

Original Title:	World's Fair
ISBN:	0452275725 (ISBN13: 9780452275720)
Edition Language:	English
Setting:	New York City, New York(United States)
Literary Awards:	National Book Award for Fiction (1986)

Rating Containing Books World's Fair

Ratings: 3.82 From 3904 Users | 310 Reviews

Crit Containing Books World's Fair

I loved this book. It is set in the Bronx of the 30s. My mother grew up there in those days and told me many stories about it. Reading about Morris High School (her alma mater), the Grand Concourse, Jerome Avenue, the automat, and more made it seem very special to me, although I haven't seen any of those places for nearly 50 years and then only once. It was kind of like City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder, a well-loved book of my youth, and Radio Days, one of my favorite films. Will

Meh. What's to like? Maybe the chapters at the end about the kid's actual visit to the fair with his young girlfriend, although I found it creepy that he watches the girl's mother do an erotic act with a mechanical octopus. Other than that bit of bluster, nothing much happens. I was puzzled by some of "young Edgar's" vocabulary; I had to read some sentences twice and still wasn't sure what Doctorow was getting at. And they don't teach about comma splices in the Bronx? Also, the sections narrated

I wanted to like this more than I did. It is filled, filled, filled with accurate details of life in the Bronx during the 30s, ending in 1940 with the New York World's Fair. Everything is described, and all is well described - the news, the clothes, the food, new inventions, the street life, games, parks, Jewish traditions. This is a secular Jewish family. Seeing the Hindenburg airship was excitingly told to site just one fun episode. What you get is a million and one descriptions. The book ends

The Worlds Fair was written by E.L. Doctorow and won the National Book Award in 1986. It is largely an autobiographical novel of a boy, Edgar, growing up in the Bronx in the 1930s. His fun-loving father owns a prominent music store. His mother is the adult in the relationship who constantly worries about the finances which are tight during the Depression even before his father loses the store. At some point young Edgar begins to figure out what romantic relationships are about and what his dad

Nearly perfect coming of age story, set in NYC, during the 1930s, capping off with the World's Fair in '38. This looks to be based on Doctorow's early life.

E.L. Doctorow's 'World's Fair' is amazing. It's easily one of the most evocative expressions of childhood that I've read.The story - largely autobiographical - takes place in the 1930s, at war's brink. The World's Fair is taking place in NYC, and young Edgar, a Jewish kid, is desperate to attend. What unfolds between the start of the book and the inevitable trip to the Fair is nothing short of brilliant. Keenly-felt explanations of what it meant to be a youth in the 30s (and a Jew) are offered

Some readers have been frustrated by this book's lack of a strong plot or storyline along the lines of Billy Bathgate or Ragtime but what it lacks in this regard it makes up in other ways. The characters are to me more realistic than in his other more conventional novels. The family members' personalities and characteristics are captured vividly as are childhood memories, concerns, anxieties, fears, excitements, and play. The protagonist is a bright and engaging young boy and the narration is