No need for apologies, Jasmin, and welcome to the group. I found this a tricky book to follow, but I am still thinking about it now, which says something for it.

Thank you for the teaching guide link, Susan. I know I'm a month late (I just joined this group!) so my apologies for the late post. However I was very confused as I started this book. The teaching guide helped clear up many of my misconceptions. I had no idea who was narrating when! Armed with that information, I think I will enjoy it (or at least appreciate it) now rather than having read it blindly.

You should give Faulkner another go. Sound and the Fury is very much worth the effort, so is As I Lay Dying and Light in August. Don't bother with The Bear, which is, a bear.

Mara, not that it has anything to do with doctorow, but i've always wondered if faulkner was just one of those things they threw at us when we were too young to process (let alone appreciate!) what was going on. of course, it scarred me so badly i have no intention of going back, but i wonder anyway.

I'm not sure that it was as muddy as Faulkner, and not as lyrical either, for me.

I just started this book earier this evening and am having a difficult time staying focused so far. After following the above discusson a bit, I've decided to stick with it and will return to the discussion as soon as I finish. It's already overdue, so I hope to finish it soon.

Michelle wrote: "like unfocusing your eyes to see those 3d pictures"

Great way to describe how to read stream-of-consciousness novels! Wish someone had said that to me when I read A Portrait of the Artist as a YOung Man in high school.

wow, guys, this is easily one of the best monthly discussions you've come up with.

as per usual, i'm late - probably because of the density of this book, and how hard it was to get into at first. once upon a time in grade school, we were foisted into faulkner, and lo it was a brutally awful time. i learned right then that stream-of-consciousness was clearly not for me, that it made no sense, that it didn't produce a product recognizable enough to be engaging, but if it did it would end unsatisfyingly.

doctorow apparently won a faulkner award somewhen.

for the first good 100 pages or so, i was dragging through this one. took me weeks to get there. finally finished it by taking it on a business conference with a far more fancifully alluring book to goad me to finish it (Mara et al, i'm philosophically incapable of skimming. woe! i either have to read it all or put it down and give up, no in between. sigh. and the jazz standards part bored me out of my mind). amazingly, somewhere around p.120something, i relaxed and gave up trying to remember who each narrator was and attempting to force it into a linear pattern of sense, and just let it wash over me. maybe i just wanted to finish through it faster, i don't know, but wow did that ever work out. like unfocusing your eyes to see those 3d pictures, little connections between things became more clear, and the individual voices did too. i think you have to approach this book with a very zen frame of mind, so that it becomes totally ok that Einstein muses on the universe and Hitler is pooped out a fish and the holocaust happens and vengeance is a runaway bicycle, aka, the hand of god in the world.

originally, i dismissed the cross-stealing thing as just the gimmick that starts off the plot, but pem does put such significance on it, and muses on the idea that it's a literal sign from god that makes sense only to him and only when it's kept personal. it's going to sound a bit grade-school-y, but i'm taking that missing cross as the literal symbolism: pem looses his religion, and takes it as a sign from god that it is found elsewhere, and thusly his faith takes the same path as his cross did.

far from perfect, but i did like it quite a bit once i relaxed enough to get into it.

Thank you, Tom.

Libby, I agree actually with what you said about conviction. Despite religion we all believe for instance that commiting an act of violance in the name or religion is wrong. We could go on and on. But as for the exact face of god or the exact code by which we are supposed to live, that all evolves, of course.


Alright, randomly unrelated, but, my favorite parts were his descriptions of animal life. I actually really liked all those comments on the birds, ants, fish, etc. I like this one

There is one fish, they hatchet, which skulks about in the deep darkness with protuberent eyes on the top of is horned head and the ability to electriclaly light its anus to blind predators sneaking up behind it. The electric anus however is not an innate feature. It comes from a colony of luminescent bacteria that house themselves symbiotically in the fish's asshole. And there is a purpose to this as well which we have yet ascertained. But if you believe God's judgment and if you countenance reincarnation then it may be reasonably assumed that a certain bacteium living in the anus of a particularly ancient hatchet fish at the bottom of the ocean is the recycled and fully sentient soul of Adolf Hitler glimmering miserably through the cloacul muck through which he is periodically bathed and nourished

Now I chuckled the first and second time I read this. But maybe he's not just being facetious. Maybe there is something there. Is he perhaps laughing at pluralism a little? Making note that when religions blend or become to tolerant and meld into each other that they become ridiculous? I don't know if that fits - in fact it doesn't seem to at all - but I do wonder why he wrote this commentary and in this way. It did make me laugh. That may have been the only point and that's okay.

mara wrote: "It's the same with politics as it is with religion - the accusation that the other side is trying to brainwash or push ideas on people. Somehow the other side's idea is always propaganda. Funny, the OTHER side is always bending the truth, trying to fox in the converts, while OUR side is just spreading the good news"

Mara - I certainly agree. It's our nature to view our beliefs as "right" and the opposite as just that, in opposition to our side. This is why I enjoy GR - because the reviews and opinions are someone's individual take on the work which is why I am still on the fence with this book. It has solid merit in its unique literary style and is extremely thought provoking - very good things - but personally, it was not for me. I agree that faith has to evolve but at the core of it is an absolute truth. I fear that our lack of convictions - religious, political or otherwise have lead to a lot of fence sitting in our society with no one ever really "right" or "wrong". I think there is a "right" and "wrong", but of course, that could lead to an endless discussion as those terms are extremely subjective as well. It's really an endless topic.

To me, the essential thing is to examine yourself, challenge your beliefs, and find out what you really think is truth and what is not. I think the idea that we need to explore ourselves and challenge our own beliefs to have real faith is present in Doctorow’s work as well as Saint Augustine’s original City of God

“Conquer yourself and the world lies at your feet.” – Saint Augustine

I am glad to have read this work as it is a very interesting book for discussion.

Mara, very good analysis on the book (which I haven't read) and on Doctorow (who I have). As much as he is a darling of the liberal eastern NY Review of Books, of which he is a card-carrying member, you have very perceptively pegged him. There is not as much there as should be. Yes, Ragtime is an enjoyable read but it is hardly deep. Waterworks was a bit flat. Book of Daniel - a fictional account of the Rosenberg kids - is supposed to be very good. Thanks for the perceptive take.

>the author’s proselytizing his own sociopolitical agenda

On the other hand, this style - an idea-heavy novel - is certainly not unheard of. There are innumerable novels in which the writer spins out philosophical points of view, explores ways of thinking, views on life, even on god. But suddenly when an author overtly meddles with ideas about religion we take for granted, we get the accusation that the author is telling us what to think. If it were a message in line with those ideas we take for truth already, if perhaps the message was that there is one true god who loves us, the proselityzing wouldn't be "proselytizing" at all. It would be a satisfying theme worked seamlessly into the story or a refreshing return to Christian values. The accusers woudl shift. Then those with more liberal-secular points of view would accuse it of being preachy.

It's the same with politics as it is with religion - the accusation that the other side is trying to brainwash or push ideas on people. Somehow the other side's idea is always propoganda. Funny, the OTHER side is always bending the truth, trying to fox in the converts, while OUR side is just spreading the good news.

That said, I think Libby's take is intriguing, that the novel is tragic because the answer is that there are not answers. I took away a nearly opposite impression. I thought it was refreshing, actually.

So many people still espouse the idea that God is dead or that he never existed. Among highbrow (not sure about this word choice, but won't fuss over it) novelists and thinkers nihilism has been wearing the crown. Here Doctorow is suggesting that God exists, and if God exists, but that god is a concept perhaps more vast and complex then the Medieval interpretation that has been pushing people away from religion for the last century or more.

If we are to hold on to faith our idea of god needs to evolve as our understanding of ourselves evolve. Rather than hold firm against evolution for example, why not see this as a widening of our understanding of creation. Isn't that faith? Faith is about knowing there is a god, a truth, a logos, etc. that has nothing to do with using the bible as a manuel unaffected by historical context.


Thank you Libby for posting the links. I really liked Doctorow's speech in the Nation.


I am beginning to really like this author, though ironically I'd give mediocre reviews to the actual books I've read by him so far.

Susan - thanks for the link. It summarizes the book and its theme's nicely.

I've also found these which I think clearly show the author's strong leftist political agenda. It adds an interesting perspective to the book:

http://www.brucebawer.com/doctorow.htm - very interesting review addressing the religious and political aspects of the book

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080714/do... - a speech given by Doctorow

I think these helped me put my finger on what I found unsettling about this book - the author’s proselytizing his own sociopolitical agenda. Certainly, my opinion is going to be affected by my own faith and political views. I am a Protestant Christian with middle of the road political views which lean more to the conservative side. Nonetheless, I enjoy good discourse and do not shy away from books that question traditional Judeo-Christian faith. I believe that faith is very personal and needs to be explored to be truly believed.

In that sense, I enjoyed this book but ultimately found the work to be tragic as the only “answer” is that there are no answers. Personally, based on my faith, I disagree. I also do not appreciate being “told” what to think religiously or politically and I think this book has an undercurrent of proselytizing - even if it is simply telling you to question everything, which is, in and of itself, a religious viewpoint.

All that said, the book certainly has literary merit and is uniquely well-written. I am glad to have experienced it but am not likely to read it again, and am torn over whether I’d recommend it to others. For me, this work falls into the category of “I can appreciate it for its merit but personally didn’t like it.

Ok, I just finished the book, and I didn't hate it, but it wasn't my favorite. I grew to appreciate moments of great writing, but the it's not an easy book to digest. Because I felt less than satisfied after reading the book, I Googled it, and came up with this teaching guide (apologies if the link has been posted) and at the very least, it gave me a starting point to digest the book.

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pdf/te...

I think what I appreciated most about the book, is that despite its disjointedness, the storyteller is trying to use avenues that are universal to everyone: for example movies or music. Many touch upon similar themes, and are not easily understood until heard or seen, when everyone can relate to it. I posted before about science and religion: the speech that Spielgman made, gave Everett and Pem a moment to..... I'm not really sure where I was going with that one, but what I appreciated from the science parts is that science was not set out to disprove or explain religion, but it was an integral part. Also, if you read the link I posted about, the idea of one storyteller (Everett) bringing about all theses themes, that are universally in once place (like the Bible) is intriguing.

My two cents. Not a book I would re-read, but appreciated none the less.

mara wrote: "hahahaha, Lazarus, that was exactly what it felt like. We all need medical attention now I'm sure.

Right, and if disjunctiveness is a word why not disjunctedness? English is already one of the..."

Well, if disjunctiveness is possessing or exhibiting the quality of being 'disjunctive' then disjunctedness should entail being possessed of the quality of being 'disjuncted'. One is active: the other is passive. Therefore Doctorow's book is disjunctive but by reading it we have become disjuncted.

Or I'm making it up as I go along: whatever, we should commence casually slipping it into conversations with the wives of our male friends we meet at the supermarket or in e-mails we send to our superiors at work. People who's pride prevents them from acknowledging that we might know more than they do. Not to be outdone they'll do the same and so on until, hey presto, we've expanded the lexicon.

hahahaha, Lazarus, that was exactly what it felt like. We all need medical attention now I'm sure.

Right, and if disjunctiveness is a word why not disjunctedness? English is already one of the hardest languages to learn. Why not make it a point of pride in national identity to increase the chaos?


Hmmm actually I'm not sure disjunctedness isn't a word. Clearly I'm too lazy to look it up.

Leila wrote: "It took me 50-75 pages to get into the flow, but once I did the disjunctedness (don't think that is a word) stopped bothering me. This was the first book I read on my new Kindle and it was rather ..."

Warning: reading this book may result in the patient developing Disjunctivitis - a serious and debilitating condition affecting the mucous membrane of the eye and resulting in a worldview akin to that of staring permanently down a kaleidoscope.

Disjunctedness should so definitely be a word.

So what did it mean - the story of Sarah's father - why was it there? How did it fit in with the rest? That was my question while reading and I'm not sure I know now. Does the commentary provide context for the story? I thought it was supposed to but never really got the what that context or message was supposed to be. Like I said, I enjoyed the novel when I thougth of it as separate essays and vignettes, but I am frustrated with my inability to understand it as a whole

Mara wrote: I barely looked at the Jazz quartet stuff. What was that about? I still don't get why all that was there. Music loses three quarters of its meaning without the damn music right?

Second only to the story of Sarah's father, I liked the jazz stuff. I don't know why it's there but I liked it. I chuckled through all of them. They stripped away the candy-coating of relationships and I thought it was interesting.

I think we all liked the story of Sarah's father because we got to know him, even if it was a fictional him. We never got to know any of the other characters which I found frustrating.

Kim wrote: "There were things I really liked about this book. The stories from Sarah Blumenthal's father were so well-written and interesting. I was actually wishing that could've just been a book in and of ..."

I agree with you every time I got interested in (started to understand) a plotline it seemed like it just kind of disappeared. I have to admit I finished the book maily because I was hoping for some kind of clarity at the end.

mara wrote: "I skipped, flipped ahead when it got tedious

That's what I need to do - I'm finding the book tough to get through because the lit major in me insists on reading and thinking about every word . . . I think I just need to read what I like, skip the rest and take what I can get out of it :-) Otherwise, I may never finish!

I think I'm one of the only ones here who was bored of the Sarah part.

>This seemed to be the longest 272 pages I've read in a long time. I'm almost disappointed that I didn't give up and spend my time reading something else.

Funny...Yeah I hear you. I skipped, flipped ahead when it got tedious. I barely looked at the Jazz quartet stuff. What was that about? I still don't get why all that was there. Music loses three quarters of its meaning without the damn music right?

There were things I really liked about this book. The stories from Sarah Blumenthal's father were so well-written and interesting. I was actually wishing that could've just been a book in and of itself.

But is it just me, or did anyone feel like it all just sortof died out at the end? Can't really think of a better way to articulate that...

I feel like putting in my two cents worth.

As with everybody else, I too, really enjoyed the ghetto stories, and I agree with many of your comments about interesting choice of story structure and multiple protagonistic viewpoints, especially Mara's and Denise's well thought out viewpoints and theories.

I have finished the book and unlike when I finished Tales of Power, I do not feel better for having made it through. This seemed to be the longest 272 pages I've read in a long time. I'm almost disappointed that I didn't give up and spend my time reading something else.

I believe he had great ideas for 2 or 3 stories (the Ghetto and its retribution and Pem & Sarah's romance)but couldn't bring the ideas to fruition, so he balled them all up and added filler, such as the jazz songs and the 2 page list of items found in a trunk, as well as the introduction of bit characters who don't bring anything of value to the story: Pem's Fathers, Faux Sinatra, etc.

One thing does puzzle me, though.
*********************************
Possible Spoiler:

*************************************
Is Emerald the retired newspaperman?

You're welcome. I thought the same - about the review!

MIght he be saying that faith must be flexible to survive?. I like this and think there is a lot to this in the book. There is also the suggesting that God is, or may be, more like a society - a city -than an individual person, but I am not sure. I'll have to fish out some quotes at a later time, but off the top of my head there are so many analogies throughout - the references to the universe, particles vs. organisms, even the idea that existence is not just matter but movement and time, the reflections on the ants, the birds, the city, etc etc...So it's not like we have a choice to be flexible, the tension is in our having free-will. If we are part of something greater but have the right and natural inclination to act alone, to only experience out own consciouness, then homogeny is defeating. If we are individual tiles in a mosaic that is truth, change/contrast is good. It doesn't matter if one tile is beautiful all by itself. If that is only one you use, you have nothing, just the background. If we are as a society creating the face of god not internally and individually but as a whole, through history, then we are destined to conflict and change and sacrilege.

I don't know, my brain hurts, and that doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm enjoying the way this book is lingering on my mind.

Denise wrote: Was he apologizing for this book?
..."

What a great discussion - fancinating ideas all around! I agree with the idea that the author is almost apologetic but feels his thoughts must be told. When Mara mentioned monomania it brought to mind Moby Dick which is the essential monomania story - Ahab obession w/ the whale and what it means brings his end. I can see this theme laced throughout. MIght he be saying that faith must be flexible to survive? This theme is seen in quite of bit of American Romantic literature.

Guess that's why I find it a sad book - very thought provoking but seemingly missing the essence of faith,which I believe is hope in a God greater than mankind.

Mara - thansk too for posting book review. Good to see we aren't alone in our thoughts on this book.

Interesting question, Denise. . . . and allow it to express itself in all its wretched insufficiency until it reaches its miserable end"

Maybe that explains why there are so many narrators. If Doctorow is the omniscient narrator then the book, with its the loose plot and arguably half-assed characterization, comes across as a simple vehicle for the author's ideas.

But if this is a work about the act of creation itself and if every narrator the author uses as a mask is vulnerable and aware of his own insufficiency then we are more open and sympathetic. Is he saying that writing is essentially sociopathic? That it takes a certain kind of madness, a monomania, to create anything? Is that the difference between sanity and insanity. The sane can let an idea go, can use restraint, can just blend in and be anonymous, while anyone who wants to create anything, has to press on through a kind of hell (knowing what you do is not good enough, is crap really) to that unavoidably miserable end? Is that what it feels like to be God?

I just finished it and am glad I read it, though I didn't know that would be true while I was reading it.

Susan, I agree with you about the three themes.

I feel like it all connects, though I can't figure out how. Storylines are thrown in and thrown out. The cross on the synagogue seems only to serve as a way of introducing Sara and Pem.

Here's a quote that struck me as funny when he wrapped up the kinky sex/power story:

And what was proposed as a tale of subtle existential horror turns out after all to be a simple waxworks melodrama, wherein the author like his villain gets his just deserts. And if it is true that a sociopath can never show restraint but must go on and on in ever greater amplification of his evil until he is destroyed, so must an author honor the character of his idea and allow it to express itself in all its wrethched insufficiency until it too reaches its miserable
end.

Was he apologizing for this book?

I am only about 75 pages into this book, and I agree its a slow go, but as I was perusing the posts and wanting to add my 2 cents, a few thoughts:

I enjoy the vignettes because it unravels the story in such a way, and it fits with what Pem (?) said about mystery stories; that the author already knows the ending, and works backwards.

The jazz is in the tone of Pem as well (at least to me) The themes that are used (remember, I'm still not that far in the book) are themes involving him and his POV, and it is interesting to see how the 'audience' reacts, ex, the applause.

Last, I find three themes interacting with one another: science, religion, and music. All three in a way are considered a universal sort of language, and I find it an interesting thread to connect all together. Just my two cents, need to get more into the meat of the book.

I like that first quote too. The book doesn't pit science against religion. It explores how science and religion are part of the same meaning in life we are all reaching for.

On reading a second time too, I am discovering all these ways that Doctorow plays with fantastical logic. That seems like an oxymoron, but part of the thrust of the book seemed to be that these kinds of contradictions abound in life and the more we know about the universe the more of them we find. I suppose a priest falling in love with a rabbi, his cross ending up on her synagogue, is a simple instance. Maybe the loose plots were a starter course for the broader, more abstract ideas suggested in the opening chapter.

(Aside - For those of you who are maybe feeling embarrassed because you don't get it, this might be funny. Okay when I read the first 30 pages or so of the Pem part I hated the book because I thought Pem was a Catholic priest, and that he was the one flirting with the married woman and taking her out to the museum. I was all offended and thought, another one trying to make priests out to be unholy old lechers!

I like what the 2000 review from Salon has to say, and I admit going here to figure out what the heck was going on, which helped a lot

Faced with such frustrating disjointedness, we're not sure who is speaking to us in any given passage, what the point is or why it matters. As soon as we catch one thread of narrative and begin to follow it gratefully, we are twisted around and spun into another story, another era, another life. . .

Doctorow seems to be saying, is the cloudy, atomized text of our existence, and midrash -- interpretation -- is our job. Applying language, using our consciousness to literally make sense, is what causes the primordial particles to coalesce. When we put our questions into words, we begin to form the stars.

These ideas about applying language are most likely the purpose of the Wittgenstein pieces. He talks in one section about how things are only things until they interact with each other. Then they become brought to life (personified?) as facts. This is such a simple idea but maybe one that is deceptively simple.

He writes:

What can be more basic to meaning than the proposition that a thing cannot be both itself and not itself? Is that not the beginning of all logic, does it not in fact express the fundamental structure of the human mind? Yet here they do one experiment provng that light it composed of a stream of light packets or particles or quanta and follow this with an experiment proving that these quanta have the properties not of particles but of waves. Depending how, in the submicroscopic realm, you choose to observe or measure light, so it will respond as one or the other. Light partakes of mutually exclusive states of being!"

So it is our language, our categorizing into concepts and our transformation of things into facts through statements about their relationships that creates what we know, the ideas we take for truths. Language both illuminates and creates what we understand as knowledge, fact, truth at the smallest level and the most abstracted (love between two people, a novel, a movie). So if the act of making a statement is the act of creating a fact, what is a question? The germinating evolutionary state of fact? The fetus of facts sucking up energy, determined to survive? There can be know truth or knowledge without questions. So Sarah says at the Conference for Religious Studies:

"It is just those uneasy promulgators of traditional established religionwho are not in lockstep with its customs and practices, or who are chafing under doctrinal pronouncements, or losing their congregations to charismatics and stadium-filling conversion performancers, who are the professional religion I trust. The faithful who read Scripture in the way Coleridge defined the act of reading poetry or fiction, i.e. with a 'willing suspension of disbelief"

Then she goes on. The rest of the sermon is definitely worth reading and thinking about even if you can't stand reading every page of this whole book. So many parts can stand alone even if you don't want to puzzle through the whole of the novel.

Hmm, I'll keep going and see. I've likely mentioned this before - but I often wish I could read "acclaimed" books without knowing that they are supposed to be amazing. I think it prejudices your reading. I always wonder - would I think this book was amazing if I just came across it and knew nothing about it? or am I just convincing myself it's great because the "experts" say so? I can obviously recognized good prose from bad but I'm talking about the emotional and mental reaction to the subject matter.

Anywya, I do think the book is purposely constructed like life - messy, with no easy answers ;-) Then you find the occasional gem that makes you pause and really see that life is wonderful and vivid- maybe it's the spot of jelly in the peanut-butter & tuna fish sandwich to use your metaphor.

Personally I think these are gems:

When he is talking about scientists as irreverent jerks - "I think they simply are lacking in holy apprehension. I think the mad illiterate priest of a prehistoric region tearing the heart out of a living sacrifice and holding still pulshing in his two bloodied hands . . . might have had more discernment." pg. 12

Also when he is talking about the paving stones at Ulm-
"And in the shadow of the great black stone cathedral, I experienced the child's revelation that he walks on the thoughts of dead men." pg. 43

Also...

The play on the concept of the cross being a mystery in the church and then involved literally in a mystery is kind of funny. I am going to go through and read for places where Doctorow talks about merging religion and movies or other forms of art and narrative. There are quite a few and they were really interesting - though not always attainable. I'll post some and we can talk about them if no one's got anything else in a few days

I think so, Libby. I tried to give the book a chance as much as possible, and often, just when I thought I was about to throw it across the room, something would completely fascinate me,

Do you think the little half-plots (Sarah's father, the cross mystery, the affair) make sense in some greater scheme (other than life doesn't makes sense so why should this book, haha)?

Also, which parts did you see as the "meat" and which seemed extra? Why cram together all these half plots? Is this some big indulgent peanut-butter and tuna fish sandwich or something more? I am open to the possibility of something more, just not sure I have realized what that is yet. I'm planning to re-read a bit this week to think it through though

For some reason I can't post. This is very frustrating.

mara wrote: "I have a love hate response to this book. Parts of it are like watching concrete, others are intensely interesting. Which passages did you find yourself circling, highlighting, remembering, etc"

I absolutely agree. I have some amazing passage underlined that I really felt were moving and poignant - however, the rest I'm having a hard time getting through. Maybe that's intentional - it's a book a lot like religion and life - some part are great and other you simply have to get through.

Though I must confess when it comes to pleasure reading sometimes I really prefer a good story to a "thinking" book :-) I think good stories don't get enough credit. Anyway, For those who have finished it - is it worth it?

Sorry, Katie, I had to move it and make it the discussion. We'd have people confused about where to post to and I didn't want to just delete it. The comments that were already here, though, were a good start so it's all good. Thanks for starting us off.

It took me 50-75 pages to get into the flow, but once I did the disjunctedness (don't think that is a word) stopped bothering me. This was the first book I read on my new Kindle and it was rather alarming to have picked something that jumped around so much as my first read -- I thought maybe the Kindle purchase was a mistake as I kept wishing I could easily flip pages back and forth to try to figure out what was going on. By the end I understood the viewpoint to be a single one -- that of Everett, as he envisioned the stories of the other characters.

SPOILER SPACE




I think I agree with other reviewers on goodreads (and elsewhere) that there was not much in the way of development of Sarah's character. She felt pretty flat to me, as opposed to all of the other main characters. I also agree with many here that the WWII story was the most engaging part, though it felt diminished to me somehow when I learned that it was being recounted by Everett.

I think that the book put a lot out there for consideration, and by the end I found myself enjoying the twisting, tangled ride.

sorry, mine was just a question, I didn't relate it to the monthly book group since I wasn't discussing any direct story lines. It just somehow turned into the discussion

Not sure what happened - both Katie and I started this discussion in different places. I kept checking mine thinking "Huh, why isn't anyone responding?" Then saw the other discussion.

I've copied and pasted my intro here and will delete my original. Good to see the discussion flowing!

(Let's make sure to post the discussion in the 1001 Book Club folder)

I am not finished with this one yet. I like it but got burnt out and put it down for awhile before picking it up again. I really like it if I think of it as a series of vignettes and essays on similar themes. As a story it's frustrating. I guess that is supposed to be part of the point. So questions -

1) What did you all think about the structure? Were you okay with the disjunctiveness of the plot and narrators? Why did Doctorow use this style and did it work?

2) Why did the cross end up over the temple? I'm not sure if the answer to this is revealed because I haven't finished, but from I hear it is opoen to interpretation. What was yours?

3) I have a love hate response to this book. Parts of it are like watching concrete, others are intensely interesting. Which passages did you find yourself circling, highlighting, remembering, etc.

Christina Stind wrote: "Anybody made anything out of the affair story? Know what's that all about???


Apart from being really weird - no. But it helps to "talk" this book out with others. It's falling into place for me. Also, think the offical discussion has started so we should probalby move off this thread.

Wittgenstein doesn't keep on with numbering his thoughts - I see it as we get both the young and the old Wittgenstein and only the young numbered his thoughts...

I think the jazz quartet stuff is Pem's sermons as well.

Anybody made anything out of the affair story? Know what's that all about???

Hope no one minds if I sort of think out loud here...

Another viewpoint is Sarah Blumenthal's father ("Secret Agent Mystery Boy") telling her the story of his childhood in a Lithuanian Jewish ghetto during WWII.

There's the writer, Everett, who has drinks with Pem ("Divinity Detective") and is writing Pem's story or the story of Pem's church and the Synagogue of Evolutionary Judaism, the Heist.

I haven't made too much of the jazz quartet, but there's a section, on page 28 in my edition, about jazz standards: "We use standards in the privacy of our minds as signifiers of our actions and relationships." I've been thinking that these are Pem's sermons...

Then there's the universe stuff, which I frankly find kind of annoying, and the bird-watching stuff, which I don't mind.

I'm about half way through and the heist story is going nowhere but the relationships around it are connecting up and developing.

We hear from Albert Einstein.

There are clues as to who is narrating, like in the Sound and the Fury, but it's not so cryptic as that. For example, one of our narrators uses words like "sez" and "migod." When Mr. Barbanel is mentioned we know we are in the Jewish ghetto with Sarah's grandfather. Wittgenstein numbers his thoughts.

Ugh, then there's the "secular Amphitryon" story, which I've been reading as Pem's fantasy but maybe it is Everett's...

Right, then there's Wittgenstein...

That's as far as I've gotten and I don't think anything I've said would spoil anything for anyone.

Kristi wrote: "We're actually getting Everett's point of view. He is trying to write a novel about Pem's life and the stolen cross. I don't understand who is narrating the song lyr..."

Kristi- you are right. I'm about 100 pgs in now and it's making more sense. It is now clear that it is Everett writing the story from Pem's POV.

The account of Sarah's father is the best part of the book for me - highly moving but not overindulged. Interesting contrast to the rest of the novel.

So the narrators I see so far are Everett (main narrator), Pem and Sarah. I think there is a fourth but I'm not clear on who. And I'm a bit weirded out by the crazy affair story.

Still don't know exactly whose doing the philosophical musings. I'm guessing it's Pem due to his crisis of faith. There is simply SO much in this book that it is a bit overwhelming. No only is the book full of thought provoking material but there are numerous references to great thinkers and writers - so far I've seen references to Albert Einstein, John Milton, Saint Augustine (which is not surprising) and many more.

Also, it seems the novel does not follow a linear timeline. It moves back and forth adding to the reader's difficulty in putting together all the pieces.

It'll be fun when I'm done to go back and try to figure out who is speaking when etc. I may actually buy a reading guide for this book to aid me in clearing up the mist. In looking back the books passages are subtly interlaced with a seemingly insignificant reference on 1 pg. showing up again in another narrator's story. I'd like to trace the lines.

The prose is amazing. The work is monumental in scope. I certainly see why it's on the list - however, I'm still not sure if I like it? Does that make sense? It seems a very sad book to me.

thanks so much, all of this helps a lot. Glad to know I'm not the only one that was a bit perplexed.

This is my understanding--

We're actually getting Everett's point of view. He is trying to write a novel about Pem's life and the stolen cross. I don't understand who is narrating the song lyrics. We read an account by Sarah's father (my favorite parts). I'm not sure who is giving us the Big Bang stuff, it might be Everett, or maybe his high school classmate? I don't know! I didn't care enough about the book to try figure it out. Libby, good job on making a list, that probably would have helped.

I've never read Ulysses, but from what I've heard, a comparison to it isn't a good thing.

I think there are at least four, but I gave up trying to figure out who was who about halfway through and just went with it. I really enjoyed passages in this book, mostly from the philosophy viewpoint, but I was confused by a lot of it. Does any one understand the point of the jazz quartet stuff?

Got this little blurb off Penguin's website -

"The plot of City of God, such as it is, will likely seem confusing to readers because it is so fragmented and jittery, and because the narrative, especially at the outset, rarely supplies us with the standard clues to establish who is speaking and what the situation is. A useful metaphor which could be discussed and assigned to the novel is that of an intricate puzzle, the assembly of which is up to the reading group to perform together. Perhaps more than any book since Joyce’s Ulysses, City of God all but defies critical distillation or reduction. And like Ulysses, City of God is more than anything a work of skilled mimesis, mirroring in prose the nature of one New York writer’s consciousness and concerns at the dawn of the twenty-first century."

So it's not just us.

Glad I'm not the only one. The book is very stream of consciousness and somewhat difficult to follow. However, I'm on page 40 and so far, I thought there was only one viewpoint - Pem. His mind is just jumping around. What was your impression?

Also, I've started making a list of characters and places mentioned which is helping me.

How many different viewpoints are in this book? I'm getting confused as to how many there actually are.