CultureWatch Reviews: Carthage Must Be Destroyed and The City of God

“No no NO!” she cried, and proceeded to explain that Cato’s famous phrase is a gerundive imperative, connoting “must be.” She extended the lesson by pointing out that my friend Amanda’s name is also frequently mistranslated as “beloved,” when in reality it is another gerundive imperative and means “one who must be loved.” If I could have changed my name on the spot, I would have. And I have certainly never forgotten the gerundive imperative.

NB This book will not be available until July 21^st. The copy I read was an uncorrected proof, so possibly my small caveats will have been corrected by then. In any event, don’t let them put you off, if you have any interest in the history of Carthage. There is much here to keep you reading.

THE CITY OF GOD by

Published by Random House; paperback, 272 pp.

The City of God as envisioned in enormous detail by St. Augustine is doubtless partly what the reader is supposed to use as a reference while reading this work of E. L. Doctorow’s, called a novel by his publisher, and presumably by him as well. If there were some other broader literary term to include the many facets of this portrayal of the City of God, it would be suitable.

The book is philosophy, religious debate, satire, politics, sociology and more. It incorporates a small story line that isn’t easy to follow because of the complexity of the structure. In spite of layered portrayals, the characters seem secondary to ideas, so the work often reads like a convoluted dissertation on nothing less than the meaning of civilization. The treatment includes ridicule and irony touching on many domains of art, economy, education, spirituality, history, government, psychiatry, music, et al. You know you’ve bitten off a pretty big mouthful early on.

Not incidentally, the flap copy is masterful, but tells only a little about the slender strand of plot, though that supplies the central metaphor. Soon it is all but buried in the accumulation of philosophical analyses and the free-ranging stream of consciousness habit of one of its main narrators.

These are brilliantly amplified with (some incongruous) scenes that take place in a kind of never-never land of musical performance. Many passages of imagined scenarios are either glorious or horrific. There are many digressions, much detail, much drama, and many gorgeous descriptions.

But Doctorow is not fooling. He may be challenging, he may be deliberately presenting puzzles he dares his reader to decipher. He certainly is confronting any casual reader with material he expects him to manage to decode. He is efficient at creating irresistible suspense, no matter how confused matters seem to be.

Gradually, you begin to learn how to tell who is talking, though almost invariably the clues are saved until well into the section where a new voice has taken over. It might be the middle-aged Episcopal priest (pretty much always at center stage), it might be his novelist friend and frequent narrator, a rabbi or the rabbi’s wife (also a rabbi) — the cast isn’t huge, it is just a little too big to be easily followed.

There are references to the past that are as vivid as the present action and that serve to clarify the results of what they foreshadow. Symbolism is clear and essential, but if the story were all that mattered, much of the detail would be nothing more than Dickensian elaborations.

The theft of a rather decrepit and no longer handsome altar cross from a declining Episcopal parish on Manhattan’s lower east side, and its discovery atop a brownstone on the upper west side is the slender reed that supports the meetings of two groups of characters. Their actions form what plot there is. That brownstone where the cross turns up is the home of a couple of idealist, reformist Jews. What begins as a civilized dichotomy between the Christian and the Jews morphs into the closest possible collaboration.

Through the past and the foreseeable future, always the city is a presence. Ideas and poetic discourse throng the pages so thickly they make the story almost too dense to penetrate — at least in a single reading. A comparison with Hieronymous Bosch comes to mind, but with Heaven given more space than he did in his teeming Hells and wicked earth; the landscape of this book is equally detailed and gripping.

It would be difficult to give even a rough outline of what happens without robbing this book of its most impressive characteristics of riveting imagination and intellect, of the subjective and objective genius that makes it such a tour de force. The end, after death, disillusionment, divorce, departure from the Church, was a surprise.

21st Century Manhattan might be very like the city limned by St. Augustine. Doctorow suggests a hope that it may have a better future than the 16th Century one, not because of sin and salvation nor destruction, nor revelation, nor even science nor religion, but because only two of those people inhabit it. It is left to the reader to decide if this denouement is ironic.

The City of God is a very big book. It is as rich in lofty thinking, baroque writing, sympathetic characters, vivid settings, and suspense as anything you are likely to see more than once or twice in a lifetime. Take your time, but read it.

Captions from Wikipedia:

(1) Carthage, currently a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site

(2) Depiction of Hannibal and his army crossing the Alps during the Second Punic War.

(3) Augustine of Hippo at the school of Taghaste by Benozzo Gozzoli

Pages: 1 · 2 · 3

Culture and Arts, Relationships and Going Places, History, Culture Watch, Travel, Senior Women Web, Articles, Book Reviews, Julia Sneden Add comments

CultureWatch Reviews: Carthage Must Be Destroyed and The City of God

More Articles