Reporting the Universe

by E. L. Doctorow

Overview

"The writer," according to Emerson, "believes all that can be thought can be written...In his eyes a man is the faculty of reporting, and the universe is the possibility of being reported." And what writer worth his name, E. L. Doctorow asks, will not seriously, however furtively, take on the universe? Human consciousness, personal history, American literature, religion, and politics—these are the far-flung coordinates of the universe that Doctorow reports here, a universe that uniquely and brilliantly reflects our contemporary scene.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674016286
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	09/30/2004
Series:	The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies , #13
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.35(d)

About the Author

E. L. Doctorow held the Glucksman Chair in American and English Letters at New York University.

Hometown:

Sag Harbor, New York, and New York, New York

Date of Birth:

January 6, 1931

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

A.B., Kenyon College, 1952; postgraduate study, Columbia University, 1952-53

Website:

http://www.randomhouse.com/atrandom/doctorow/

Table of Contents

Emerson

Childhood of a Writer

Kenyon

Texts That Are Sacred, Texts That Are Not

First Novel

Deism

The Little Bang

Why We Are Infidels

The Politics of God

The Civil Religion

Canto XXV

Apprehending Reality

Paradise Lost

Literature as Religion

Editorial Reviews

Doctorow's essays...start as a personal memoir, and unfurl into a sharp look at the state of America, its soul and its literature, all perceptively portrayed via one another. On the way through this fascinating mélange, Doctorow illuminates the business of writing and reading, the two central occupations of his own life, through which his America appears framed.

Financial Times (UK) - A. C. Grayling

Elegantly written and bracingly thoughtful.

Newsday - Peter Terzian

As Reporting the Universe (the phrase is Emerson's) unfolds with its piquant and enlightening blend of the personal, the aesthetic, and the political, Doctorow uses the axis between the secular and the religious to take measure of the transcendent powers of literature and key ethical issues in post-September 11 America. As he forthrightly contrasts the rigidity of fundamentalism with the fluidity of intellectual and artistic explorations, Doctorow, who always works on deep, even mythic levels, creating brilliant arguments out of breathtaking metaphors, perceives great danger in the current blurring of the line between church and state, and in the enormous influence of corporate interests on governmental policy. Ultimately, this potent collection of elegantly distilled essays offers a fresh perspective on our species' capacity for both the sublime and the horrific.

Booklist - Donna Seaman

There hasn't been such a generous batch of essays in the decade since his own Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution.

New York Review of Books - John Leonard

Doctorow's nonfiction has a distinctly Emersonian approach, attempting to delve beneath the visible to find a soulful center, albeit primarily a secular one.

Chicago Tribune - Art Winslow

Doctorow's nonfiction has a distinctly Emersonian approach, attempting to delve beneath the visible to find a soulful center, albeit primarily a secular one.
— Art Winslow

Chicago Tribune

There hasn't been such a generous batch of essays in the decade since his own Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution.
— John Leonard

New York Review of Books

Elegantly written and bracingly thoughtful.
— Peter Terzian

Newsday

Doctorow's essays...start as a personal memoir, and unfurl into a sharp look at the state of America, its soul and its literature, all perceptively portrayed via one another. On the way through this fascinating mélange, Doctorow illuminates the business of writing and reading, the two central occupations of his own life, through which his America appears framed.
— A. C. Grayling

Financial Times (UK)

As Reporting the Universe (the phrase is Emerson's) unfolds with its piquant and enlightening blend of the personal, the aesthetic, and the political, Doctorow uses the axis between the secular and the religious to take measure of the transcendent powers of literature and key ethical issues in post-September 11 America. As he forthrightly contrasts the rigidity of fundamentalism with the fluidity of intellectual and artistic explorations, Doctorow, who always works on deep, even mythic levels, creating brilliant arguments out of breathtaking metaphors, perceives great danger in the current blurring of the line between church and state, and in the enormous influence of corporate interests on governmental policy. Ultimately, this potent collection of elegantly distilled essays offers a fresh perspective on our species' capacity for both the sublime and the horrific.
— Donna Seaman

Booklist

In the 14 essays -- originally delivered as the William E. Massey Sr. lectures in the history of American civilization at Harvard -- the novelist E. L. Doctorow recalls his boyhood during the Depression in his culturally rich Brooklyn home and reflects on his intellectual development at Kenyon College under the tutelage of the poet John Crowe Ransom. — Andy Brumer

The New York Times