City of God (Drama)

By E. L. Doctorow

Publisher: Abacus (2001)

Paperback 320 pages

          “Perhaps the first songs were lullabies. Perhaps mothers were the first singers. Perhaps they learned to soothe their squirming simian babes by imitating the sounds of moving water, the gurgles, cascades, plashes, puddlings, flows, floods, spurts, spills, gushes, laps, and sucks. Perhaps they knew their babies were born from water. And rhythm was the gentle rock of the water hammock slung between the pelvic trees. And melody was the sound the water made when the baby stirred its limbs.”

          A few have called this the author’s written mid-life crisis, which may be well deserved. But I don’t call such a description damning. This book is a reflexive look at the author’s world through a series of seemingly disconnected events, characters, and personal revelations that are interwoven together (at least thematically) in an examination of faith and God, and how the two connect together in the lives of many people. It focuses extensively on how one’s faith (or lack thereof) can powerfully affect people decades later for whom the original has no knowledge.

          A few people might have written off the similarity in names between this text and the 5th Century Christian philosophical work by St. Augustine of Hippo, but the parallels between the two works are very apparent. The Augustine text was written after the sack of Rome by the Visigoths and was meant to comfort and direct Christians who found their world crumbling about them. It is one of the cornerstone of Western thought giving written form to such key concepts as the suffering of the righteous, the existence of evil, the conflict between free will and divine omniscience, and the doctrine of original sin. Essentially these ideas boil down to a singular struggle between earthly delights and spiritual growth.

Author E. L. Doctorow

          St. Augustine places all of human history in this struggle, naming one the Earthly City and the spiritual side as the City of God. Thus all actions are a result between the forces of evil and good, interacting in ways that one might not realize. Taken through this lens, the novel begins to make much more sense.

          Now what this means (especially in the life of the character Pem, a fallen priest) is that, regardless of one’s personal faith, a person living in this world cannot help be affected by faith- whether for good or evil. And that, even if a person renounces all forms of society and religion, much the direction of their lives will be caught up in this struggle between the Earthly City and the City of God. It cannot be helped. This is the structure of life and will always be so.

          The writing in this novel is brilliant, inspired, a whirlwind of form and shape. Often I read passages aloud and just let the rhythm of the verbal constructs wash over me. Not to say that this is for everyone. If you want a tightly structured plot, where the protagonist goes through a five-act character arc, look elsewhere. These are vignettes tied through sub-text. Let the action wash over you, and the purpose beneath will reveal itself.

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.