City of God [Import] [Paperback]

E. L. Doctorow (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown (2000)
• ISBN-10: 0316854697
• ISBN-13: 978-0316854696
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)

More About the Author

E. L. Doctorow's novels include The March, City of God, The Waterworks, Welcome to Hard Times, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Loon Lake, Lives of the Poets, World's Fair, and Billy Bathgate. His work has been published in thirty-two languages. Among his honors are the National Book Award, three National Book Critics Circle awards, two PEN/Faulkner awards, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal. E. L. Doctorow lives in New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A laborious route to a magnificent ending, March 21, 2000

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: City of God: A Novel

I waited until I finished reading Doctorow's "City ofGod" before reading any reviews of this book - not sure why Imade that choice but once made I was thankful I had. If you're looking for his usual mix of historical fact with fascinating fiction, don't try this work. Work? Yes, that is exactly what this book is. And after wading through alot of pages that begged editing, I started over. City of God takes us back to college days, when we wandered from Philosophy to Religion to History to Psychology to Physics and to Biology classes. None of it pulls together until all the courses are finished THEN the magnificence of Doctorow's mind is appreciated. There is a good novel buried in this book, but the true rewards are found in Doctorow's philosphical excursions. His exploration of the beginning of the universe, his mingling the various philosophies that address man's condition and his search for meaning in a abusively chaotic cosmos, his paring down the tennants of Jewish and Christian thought - all these are done with enormous skill and read even better when approached a second and third time. Sometimes he is out of his territory - as when he maligns us with the oh-so-corny reinterpretations of banal songs. But Wow! this man's mind is impressive. And for those hardy readers who commit to finishing this literary task the retrospective gratification is magnificent!

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars City of God, February 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: City of God: A Novel

I have just completed the first reading of Edgar Laurence Doctorow's latest novel, "City of God". It is not an easy read. It is disjointed. Some of the characters require imaginative guesswork. BUT it is well worth the effort. Anyone who has lived the majority of his or her life in the 20th century will find a "shock of recognition" on many pages. The conflict of science and religion, the newer studies in cosmology and the horrors we have been witness to, all pose questions that defy answers. Some of us may still find solace in our faiths. As a retired physician I found myself frequently facing a dark, starry sky with my fist upraised asking: "WHY?" How could God, an infinite, all-knowing, loving, immortal being allow so much hatred, so much misery, some of which occurred with the concurrence of organized religion to take place? The pat answers learned from my faith were not sustaining and have left a void. The author addressed many of these conundrums and stimulates the reader to begin or, in my own case, to continue to puzzle over these age old problems. He touches on the next centuries ecological catastrophies, which if dealt with with past solutions will surely lead to our extinction. His evolutionary concept of an evolving infinite being is intriguing. The novel is thought provoking, uncomfortable but thoroughly engaging. I will re-read it and would highly recommend it to all thoughtful yet perplexed readers.

69 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A veteran author comes of age., March 26, 2000

By 

"phrynicus" - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of God: A Novel

Some initial caveats: 'City of God' is not a straightforward mystery as its blurb suggests. Nor is it the impossibly cerebral challenge that some have suggested. It is not a theological manifesto. Nor does its blend of fact and fiction does not entail Doctorow's habitual ironic play with history.

This is a book about connections. Life and art, fact and fiction, and the past and present conjoin in the ruminations of a middle-aged writer attempting to make holistic sense from the seemingly disparate threads of the late twentieth century. The novel is therefore also about the potential difficulties of being middle-aged, and of trying to look to the future when one is increasingly compelled to reminisce (and confess) about the past. Its characters roam the city of New York and then the world for missing objects and people, including stolen brass crosses from churches, WWII diaries containing evidence of Nazi criminals, and excommunicated reverends. Predictably (but also pleasurably), more important than what they find is what they learn about both themselves and the age in which they live.

Some reviewers have criticised the novel for its fragmentary style. But here Doctorow produces some of his most lyrical, least mannered excursions into the human unconscious yet. The novel's chief difficulty for readers is not in trying to understand it but in knowing how to read it. My experience of its chief pleasures come not from looking at the fragments individually, but by examning the connections between them.

Moreover, don't expect the 'city' of the title to be teeming with carefully delineated characters. Perhaps it's best to think of the novel as the examination of one person (Everett, the writer who collects ideas for stories, poems and songs in this 'workbook') whose presence is replicated in a number of different stories which range across twentieth-century history. That said, this presence is most successfully telescoped into Everett's contemporary evocations of Tom Pemberton, a cleverly drawn character and a bewitching symbol of oft-thwarted yet surviving ambitions.

This novel is a joyful celebration of age, memory, regeneration and hope for the future.

Final note: this isn't a 'postmodern' novel, although its style is experimental. In my opinion the subject is more traditional: like Victor Hugo or Dostoyevsky, it is concerned with the power of art to transfigure and redeem history. Be patient with this novel, and enjoy the rewards.