The city of god book doctorow

Doctorow, plus links to a book excerpt from city of god and author biography of e. While we cannot expect closure to his tale, we can appreciate his wise guidance. New york, the holocaust, the 20th century, apocalypse, love, religion, and the universe. Ein voluminoser thesenroman ist city of god, behauptet christoph. Doctorow s book delivers an extraordinary amount of food for thought for curious, questing students. Doctorow s city of god is a valuable book for those who want to think about religion and spiritual issues or to see why people think about them. New york, the holocaust, the 20th century, apocalypse, love, religion, and the. Doctorow s city of god is a novel about almost everything imaginable. City of god is a very good novel about contemporary america and its troubled search for reconciliation between science and faith. The material collected by writer everett, the narrator in city of god, is an examination of the relationship between human beings and god, between human beings and the world around them, between. Doctorow s work is its double vision, the critic peter s. A special limited edition of only 1,100 copies, signed by author e. Doctorow s novel promises to strike readers as a wonderfully unusual novel with a liberating narrative technique that breaks many of the socalled rules of the novel and also echoes and riffs on styles and themes from a wide range of literary and historical. This book has never been read and is in as new condition.

Doctorow s novel promises to strike readers as a wonderfully unusual novel with a liberating narrative technique that breaks many of the socalled rules of the novel and also echoes and riffs. Holocaust survivors, and war veterans, city of god is a monumental. Not even doctorow is sure how many what he calls motifs run through his book. Introduction city of god city of god opens a vast window on a range of religious, scientific, historic, and aesthetic concerns. And while moviemaking in the united states has been, preeminently, a mode of mythmaking, doctorow s engagement with the unassuageable cruelties and squandered promises of american history has been pointedly antimythical. Doctorows city of god is a novel about almost everything imaginable. With brilliant and audacious strokes, the author of ragtime and billy bathgate creates a breathtaking collage of memories, events, visions, and provocative thought, all centered on the idea of a modern reality of god.

This is a matter not only of style and method the book features shifting. A native of the bronx chronicles a century of the city 1994 doctorow was interviewed in bryant park near the new york public library, the former site of a resevoir that plays a prominent role in his book the waterworks. City of god by doctorow, signed, franklin abebooks. New york times bestseller with brilliant and audacious strokes, e. Doctorow s works of fiction include welcome to hard times, the book of daniel, ragtime, loon lake, worlds fair, billy bathgate, the waterworks, city of god. Doctorow is a story told by the narrator everett who is writing a story about pem, an episcopalian priest.

L, doctorow s turnofthe century novel city of god explores the nature of religious faith for those for whom traditional forms of religion have become difficult or lost their meaning. Doctorow s ten novels, welcome to hard times, was published in 1960, when he was 29. Discuss the dozens of stories that comprise doctorow s book, from the story of the universe to. There arent half a dozen men or women alive who could have written this novel, and none even among those who could have made it work as well as it does. It is doctorow s gift that he can connect difficult theological and cosmological ideas and render them simply and vividly for his readers. Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and the profane, and fil.

We get a closeup view of the bleeding edge of contemporary philosophy. We want you to be as happy when you have the item in hand as you are when you view it on your computer screen. The book does not give answers but provokes questions and is an antidote to allpervasive smugness or indifference. And having started off with my own big bang there, next i shall steal from someone on amazon who wrote about this book that it will provide you with retrospective gratification. Doctorow creates a breathtaking collage of memories, events, visions, and provocative thought, all centered on an idea of the modern reality of god. Doctorow has new york city in his bones and the large secular city is artfulllly drawn. Although difficult to read, the effort will be rewarded.

City of god by doctorow, e l used books and rare books. The collage of memories, events, visions, and provocative thoughts by doctorow, author of ragtime and billy bathgate in form of the detective story about a cross that vanishes from a lowereastside church. In fact, one of the main themes of the book is the secular city to steal a title from harvey coxs book of many years ago and of a secular america with its own civil religion. Doctorow is the author of nine books, including welcome to the hard times, the book of daniel, ragtime, loon lake, lives of the poet, worlds fair, billy bathgate, and the waterworks he has been awarded the national book award, the national book critics circle award twice, the penfaulkner prize, the william dean howells medal of the american academy of arts and letters. Augustines treatise, city of god analyzes the factors. Throughout doctorow intertwines his thoughts on fate and the nature of god and religion. Augustines book of the same title, which responded to those who blamed christianity for the fall of rome. The book straddles the line drawn by some people between religion in the sense of devotion to a traditional creed and spirituality a personal devotion to the.

One critic has written that city of god is a story about storytellingabout the ubiquity of narrative. City of godis truly a book worth reading, perhaps particularly when one is in late adolescence, when ones first serious questions about our culture and the history that shaped it are often posed. Now, with city of god, doctorow has written a novel that is explicitly, almost defiantly anticinematic. Please be aware that this discussion guide may contain spoilers. Wifes father was survivor of holocaust, but died before he could recover journals kept in ghetto and hidden. Doctorow together in the first two sentences of anything. City of god holland novel, a 1979 historical novel by cecelia holland.

Wildly ambitious, in a strangely familiar way, the ultimate irony of city of god may be that its most successful portions are also those most closely aligned with doctorow s past work, particularly the novelinprogress abandoned halfway through, a moving account of life in a wwii jewish ghetto. Doctorow is a national treasure, and city of god is a bright and invigorating example of his talents at their best. Other stories start and stop throughout city of god, short bursts of narrative bouncing among discourses on physics and the occasional musical interpretations of the midrash jazz quartet. Doctorow was born january 6, 1931, in the bronx, the son of rose levine and david richard doctorow, secondgeneration americans of russian jewish extraction who named him after edgar allan poe. In the telling of the story there is a lot of short little essays or philosophical musings and often it is hard to know who is the current voice. Augustines city of godis the canvas on which doctorow paints an impressionistic portrait of mans frail moral.

City of god both is and isnt a dramatization of the experience of questioning, losing, then partially regaining ones faith. Augustines city of god is the canvas on which doctorow paints an impressionistic portrait of mans frail moral nature and the possibilities of. Among his honors are the national book award, three national book critics circle awards, two penfaulkner awards, and the presidentially conferred national humanities medal. Doctorows works of fiction include welcome to hard times, the book of daniel, ragtime, loon lake, worlds fair, billy bathgate. Doctorow s distinguished literary careeran astonishing modern masterwork of faith, mystery, and the search for spiritual authenticity.

Doctorow weaves a reproach to postmodernism out of the tale of a turbulent priest. This is an extract from the course the 25 most influential books in the postapostolic christian church. He attended city public grade schools and the bronx high school of science where, surrounded by mathematically gifted children, he fled to the office of. With so many disparate elements, city of god shouldnt hold together. The city of god, augustines argument was so powerful that his book became one of the most influential texts on politics, humanity, divinity, and the. Guardian doctorow s meditation on god is thoughtprovoking, perfectly accessible, intelligently told through. Doctorow s novel can nonetheless be viewed as a singular, intricately rendered portrait of one mans peripatetic imagination and streaming consciousness. Get 50% off this audiobook at the audiobooksnow online audio book store and download or stream it right to your computer, smartphone or tablet. Now, with city of god, doctorow has written a novel that is.