World's Fair

Esta es la historia de un niño, Edgar, y de una ciudad, Nueva York. ‘La feria del mundo’ transcurre en los años 30 en una Norteamérica azotada por la Gran Depresión, y la vivimos a través de la mirada de Edgar. Pero lejos de parecer un relato infantil, Doctorow nos regala una extraordinaria novela, con ciertos tintes autobiográficos, en la que resalta la calidad estilística del autor, su sencillez a la hora de narrar, y, sobre todo, ese mundo visto a través de los inocentes ojos de Edgar.

Con libros como este, estoy acostumbrado a encontrarme con escritores que se pierden en disquisiciones y recuerdos, que van adelante y atrás en una trama de la que terminas por perder el interés. Este no es el caso de ‘La feria del show more mundo’, que Doctorow lleva con mano firme, sin apenas flashbacks que interrumpan el hilo narrativo y temporal de la historia, algo de agradecer.

Siguiendo las andanzas de Edgar, conoceremos a su familia: su madre, Rose, su padre, Dave, su hermano mayor, Donald, su abuela materna, y su tío Willy, además de la familia de su padre, destacando su tía Frances. La historia está plagada de descripciones de la vida familiar de Edgar, de momentos entrañables y melancólicos, al igual que momentos más tristes. Las enseñanzas de su hermano Donald, del que Edgar siente devoción; la escucha de seriales radiofónicos, desde noticiarios, salpicados por los comentarios irónicos de su padre, hasta las aventuras de La Sombra; las calles del Bronx; los juegos del tío Willy; las sorpresas de Dave; los viajes de compras con su madre; los primeros amigos en la escuela; los deportes, el béisbol, el fútbol americano; las tareas escolares; las primeras lecturas, desde cómics hasta manuales de ventriloquia; la experiencia con la enfermedad y la muerte; el primer amor... Todo ello narrado desde la distancia, con un cierto tono elegíaco y nostálgico, sin caer en elementos sensacionalistas y sensibleros. Todas estas vivencias crean un pequeño universo formado por miríadas de detalles.

La Exposición Universal de Nueva York (1939)

Y después está Nueva York. El Nueva York de Edgar (Doctorow), un mosaico de momentos históricos, de vidas, que casi puedes palpar y sentir: los efectos de la Gran Depresión; la llegada del increíble dirigible Hindenburg surcando los cielos; las primeras noticias de la guerra en Europa, cuyas consecuencias empiezan a sentirse en las calles; el gran recibimiento otorgado a Lindbergh; la Exposición Universal de Nueva York y todas sus maravillas...

El Hindenburg surcando Manhattan

Doctorow era un escritor con oficio, y se nota. 'La feria del mundo’ es su obra más autobiográfica, y una de las más conseguidas. show less

Doctorow's World's Fair follows the 1930s Bronx childhood of "Edgar", not coincidentally the same first name as the author's, from birth to about 9 years old. The names of the rest of Edgar's family, father Dave, mother Rose, and brother Donald, also match those of the author's family. Some of the story obviously is autobiographical, but how much is hard to say. It opens during the Depression, and cultural trivia from the time abounds - Flash Gordon and the Shadow, decoder rings, etc. Edgar has some disdain for the Shadow, who could render himself invisible to criminals: "“The Shadow had no imagination. He neither looked at naked women nor thought of ridding the world of dictators like Hitler or Mussolini.” This is one of the show more strengths of the novel - Doctorow's eye for detail brings the times to life, as Hitler casts a dark shadow, and the optimism of the World's Fair in NYC awaits at the end of the decade.

Edgar is smart and precocious, but his voice never sounds false, even amid all the beautiful writing by Doctorow. One winter's day his brother and his friends decide to build an igloo, and Edgar is included:

''As they slowly built the igloo up on an ever decreasing circumference, I watched with a sense of the anti-material oppositeness of the thing; bit by bit, it was eliminating itself as an idea from the light of the sun. I felt that what was being built was not a shelter, but some structured withdrawal from the beneficence of the lighted day, and my excitement was for invited darkness, the reckless enclosure, as if by perverse and self-destructive will, of a secret possibility of life that would be better untampered with.''

The igloo causes great excitement in the neighborhood, with the warmth inside marveled at, and boys using it as an exclusive chamber. Soon enough, however, attention wanders elsewhere, as it does with boys everywhere.

His best friends are Arnold, an outsider who shares his love of imaginative role-playing games (Edgar uses his storytelling ability to make sure Edgar's always the hero), and Meg, with whom he is willing to stray from his own preferences to play dolls or view infants in a ward. Her unconventional mother helps him expand his thinking beyond what his strict mother would ever contemplate, often to his mother's displeasure. He is open to experience, and genuine, in a way that beguiles the reader.

''When the mother wasn't home, or when she went out while I was there, I was disappointed. The visit became less interesting. She always smiled when she saw me. She had large eyes, widely spaced, and a wide mouth. She was very kind. Sometimes she joined us in our games. She would sit on the floor with us, and we three would have a good time.''

The last part of the book, in which Edgar gets to visit the World' Fair twice, is a treat. Doctorow's love of life's minutiae makes it all come alive, and we find ourselves cast back in time to when Americans, in one of the country's most difficult times, nonetheless celebrate possibility and the future.

A pleasant and illuminating read. Four stars. show less

hmmm...this is going to sound lame-ass, but when a book is titled 'world's fair' and the fair in nyc is noted on the jacket copy...you kind of expect the world's fair to be an anchor in the story. it's not. not until nearly the very end of the book. so that was a bit weird for me.

but...E.L. DOCTOROW! there. i feel better getting that out of my system.

the man is awesome-sauce. in reading this autobiographical story, i loved the interesting blend of memoir-type remembrances, (doctorow's first name is 'edgar', as is our protagonist. the novel's family are also named the same as doctorow's family - dave, rose and donald, his parents and brother.), fiction and a bit of history too. this is a great portrait of a family in nyc city trying to show more carve out an existence during two life-changing global events - the depression and world war two. set primarily during the 1930s (there were a couple of very small flashbacks to the mother's childhood) this novel offers a great portrayal of a jewish family in new york city. our main character is edgar, who ranges in age in the book from toddler to 11-year-old. he's wise and introspective and very curious abut the world around him. most kids think the world revolves around them and i think doctorow did a fantastic job capturing how this works and looks in day-to-day life.

doctorow won the 1986 national book award for for fiction for world's fair and i totally get why. show less

I love the other novels I have read by E.L. Doctorow (Ragtime, Homer and Langley), so I'm not sure why enjoying this novel so much took me by surprise. It seems to be a simple story at first, not much more than a young boy's collection of anecdotes about growing up in the '30s and early '40s in the Bronx. The novel is charming if slightly aimless at this point. Then, slowly, you realize Doctorow was saying a lot more. His narrator, Edgar, lives in a New York and an America that still seems very old fashioned, but that is on the brink of a time that would swiftly become modern with the onset and then aftermath of WWII. The purpose of the book seems to be to remember this time that perhaps felt so different to someone like Edgar, looking show more back as an adult from say the 1950s or 1960s or beyond. In fact, Docotorow includes brief passages from other members of Edgar's family, chipping in with remembrances of the time the novel covers, almost like their own contribution to the time capsule that the book is (a symbol later important in the novel). While it also deals with universal issues of growing up and being in a family, World's Fair is about living in a rapidly changing world and later attempting to recall what life was like at what must have felt like a turning point. show less

I am always delighted to pick up and re-read a book by E.L.Doctorow - easily one of my favourite authors. Once again, this book did not disappoint. Doctorow is a literary time traveller who takes us with him - in this case to New York in the 1930's. World's Fair feels like a thinly disguised autobiography. The author was able to tell a coming-of-age story through the eyes of Edgar, the youngest child of the family. Occasionally, he includes chapters narrated by other adult family members to help underscore how the impressions of a boy are not always what he thinks they are.

Edgar's dad was a charming dreamer, losing money hand over fist and firmly attached by the apron strings to his own family. His mum was too harried and too show more overworked to wring much enjoyment from life. Still, Edgar is reassured that they loved him and that he loved them right back. It’s probably that way with most families. When all the grudges and grievances wear down, what remains is the love.

Towards the end of World’s Fair, Edgar enters an essay-writing competition on the theme of the typical American boy. “The Typical American Boy is not fearful of Dangers,” he writes. “If he is Jewish he should say so. If he is anything he should say what it is when challenged.” In a more sappy coming-of-age story this effort would win first prize and its author be hailed as a literary star in the making. In the real world, though, magic takes softer, more subtle forms. So no, Edgar’s earnest, heartfelt essay can’t mend his parents’ failing marriage or save his dad’s floundering music shop. But it does earn honourable mention in the local paper and affords the family the opportunity to attend the World's Fair in its waning days.

For me, this is a quiet little perfect book. show less

World’s Fair tells the sweet and sometimes poignant story of Edgar Altschuler, a nine-year old boy growing up in the Bronx during the 1930s. Told through a series of vignettes of both memorable and mundane episodes that occur during Edgar’s young life, the novel reads more like a memoir than it does a work of pure fiction. Indeed, Edgar is a thinly veiled version of Doctorow himself—both author and character share the same given name, grew up in the same neighborhood in the same era, and had parents named Rose and Dave—which leads the reader to wonder how much of what happens in the book actually occurred in real life. Certainly, the pivotal events involving the explosion of the Hindenburg airship, the clouds of war that were show more forming over Europe, and the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows were real, which also gives the novel the feel of carefully observed historical fiction.

I did not grow up in an urban area such as New York, nor did I grow up in a Jewish household in the late 1930s. So, I did not immediately relate to everything that Edgar went through and I also found it difficult to celebrate his joys or sympathize with his plight. What I could appreciate, however, was the gentle, insightful way the author was able to craft a coming-of-age tale through the eyes of a boy who is closing in on manhood, but not quite there yet. Doctorow uses an interesting device of interspersing sections narrated by other adult family members with Edgar’s first person stories to help underscore how the impressions of a boy are not always completely reliable. World’s Fair was a book that I read rather quickly and I suspect it is not one that I will remember for very long. Still, like the fair itself, it was an enjoyable experience while it lasted. show less

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 both mature and at the same time reflective of the wonders and mysteries of boyhood. You get the best of both worlds. This is a wonderful reminiscence that captures well the NYC of the 1930s and that remarkable and magical period of a person's life show more known as childhood. show less