Intersections in Ragtime

One of the things that struck me most about Ragtime was the amount of connections between the characters.  Although some are essential to the plot of the novel, others seem to be strewn throughout the narrative in a manner that is carefully contrived to appear random and coincidental.  Doctorow uses to great effect his authorial control over the text to arrange these intersections of character threads without it feeling too heavy-handed or forced.  I was particularly impressed with the repeated connections between the little boy and the little girl.  Their chance meeting at the trolley stop (which ties into a whole other level of connectedness involving the grid and characters such as Coalhouse) and the boy’s recovery of the discarded silhouettes, passed through Evelyn and Younger Brother, of which he immediately gravitates to the girl’s portrait, lead up to their meeting in Part III, which results in their budding friendship and eventually them becoming siblings.  Also, the pair turning out to be the inspiration for Our Gang was a particularly delightful integration of the fictional characters into the historical record, the closing scene of an entire narrative that turns on just that effect.