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Title: City of God by John Rubinstein, E.L. Doctorow ISBN: 0-375-40816-9 Publisher: Bantam Books-Audio Pub. Date: 15 February, 2000 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 3 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.94 (79 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Thought-provoking novel of Integrity and Ingenuity
Comment: City of God, by E. L. Doctorow, is a timeless classic following in the footsteps of the original copy of City of God by St. Augustine. The author takes on the form of different people, from geniuses such as Albert Einstein, to Fathers and Rabbis of the modern era. The thought provoking perspectives both challenge and protect the ways of God and his Divine Plan. There are many different stories and multiple plots from different eras all linking to the topic of God in the common man's life. The only problem with the book is that most of the sentences are half a page long and are so confusing that you have to read the sentence over again. The main story, however, is of the stealing of the cross from the St. Thomas Church. The cross is found on the roof of a Synagouge on the west side of the city. Father Pemberton and Rabbi Green join together to help solve the mystery with what facts they have. With many interesting topics of issue on the universe, time travel, and gravity itself, City of God is bound to keep you up at night craving more. And if you're easily offended by challenging God's authority, I would not recommend this novel to you.
Rating: 3
Summary: E. L. Doctorow's "City of God": Postmodern Fizz
Comment: The novel's title, recalling St. Augustine's great philosophical work of the same name, suggests ambition well beyond simply writing an interesting novel. While the book has many passages of mesmerizing eloquence, learning, and emotional power, it finally does not work effectively as a novel.
The book's central character is a novelist gathering information for a book he is trying to write about a cross stolen from an Episcopal church that mysteriously reappears in a synagogue. We hear ruminations about the writer's love life, sketches of scenes, scenarios for movies, commentaries (or midrashes)on pop tunes, and much more.
We read harrowing accounts of life in a Jewish ghetto during World War II. (This is powerful, but read William Styron's "Sophie's Choice." It packs a much bigger emotional punch.) We also hear about World War I, Vietnam, and the movies.
We are even treated to monologues by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Albert Einstein, and Frank Sinatra -- the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost of the postmodern world?
Like his novelist-central character, Doctorow jumps from topic to topic, without apparent rhyme or reason. It is of course perfectly fine to write a nonlinear, fragmented novel. Just look at Don DeLillo's astonishing "Underworld." But it is never clear what "City of God" gains from this approach, why it had to be done this way and only this way.
For this reader at least, it was so much postmodern fizz.
Rating: 5
Summary: Writing about the holocaust and other things
Comment: E.L. Doctorow does a clever thing. He has a character who is the author writing this book. One organizing idea of the book is New York City. Another is ecumenical interest in God. The author uses time shifting and place shifting. This is an example of the use of the new historicism. Doctorow always has written with a sense of history.
The city's grid was laid out in the 1840's. Ben and Ruth had two sons, Ronald and Everett. Ben was a naval officer, a naval communications observer in World War I. Ronald served in World War II. He had to parachute from his plane and was discovered by a French peasant. Ruth lived to age ninety five, exceeding the lifetime of her husband by some thirty seven years. She always said she would not give her opinion unless asked to do so.
Sarah Blumenthal and Joshua Gruen are rabbis at the Synagogue of Evolutionary Judaism. The synagogue is the site of the placement of a cross stolen from Saint Timothy's, an Anglican Church in the East Village. Thomas Pemberton, or Pem, meets Sarah and Josh when the locus of the cross is determined. Pem, in the course of the book, undergoes the closing of Saint Timothy's and his own self-designated reassignment to a hospice, the finding of a holocaust archive from Vilnius pertaining to the experience of Sarah's father following the death of Josh from a beating in Lithuania, the start of his studies to convert to Judaism, and his marriage to Sarah.
The author has occasion to interact with his own characters Pem and Sarah at the synagogue. Prior to Pem's beginning the conversion studies and prior to his marriage to Sarah, the author had commenced to study Pem in order to write an account of his experiences in his search for God. The book is multi-layered, intelligent, delightful.
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Title: The Book of Daniel: A Novel by E. L. Doctorow ISBN: 0452275660 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: April, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Welcome to Hard Times by E. L. Doctorow ISBN: 0452275717 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: July, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Reporting the Universe : by E. L. Doctorow ISBN: 0674004612 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow ISBN: 0452279070 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Lives of the Poets: Six Stories and a Novella by E. L. Doctorow ISBN: 0452278791 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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