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'. 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. 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. 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. It doesn't so much melt into a pot as anneal on a blacksmith's iron. In other words it is a place of constant dislocation and dissolution. New York City was (and of course largely still is) a city of immigrants and the children of immigrants. Both he and his avatar 'Edgar' were two years younger than my mother. 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. Doctorow's World's Fair is, for me, an important document touching on family history.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |