From Publishers Weekly
Whether he's contemplating the irony of our "God-soaked country" being officially secular, or his father's love of Edgar Allan Poe, "our greatest bad writer" (for whom he was named Edgar), or deriding the "mendacity" of politicians, Doctorow is here, as in his fiction, a wordsmith of the first order. It's a pleasure to read these essays-some autobiographical, some literary, some dealing with issues of the day-full of memorable phrases and evocative images, as well as incisive ideas. While recovering from a burst appendix as a boy during the Depression, he discovered Jack London, whose tales made him long to leave his difficult life in the Bronx "to be in the wild, loping at the head of my pack, ready to leap up and plunge my incisors into the throats of all who would harm me or my family." For readers who aren't familiar with Doctorow's work, this is a delightful and bracing introduction. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Doctorow is not only one of our most significant living novelists, he is also a superbly illuminating essayist. Although he knew at age nine that he would be a writer, Doctorow studied philosophy rather than literature, and cites as the source of his metaphysical and moral concerns the heady dynamic between the "secular humanism" of the men in his family and the women's "impulse to reverence." 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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
"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.

Rich with philosophical asides, historical speculations, personal observations, and literary judgments, Reporting the Universe ranges from the circumstances of Doctorow's own boyhood and early work to the state of modern society. An account of the "Childhood of a Writer," along with pieces on Kenyon College and the author's first novel, comprise a pocket-sized memoir. In reflections on Emerson, on "texts that are sacred, texts that are not," and on literature and religion Doctorow concerns himself with the status and fate of literature. And in "Why We Are Infidels" and "The Politics of God" he engages some of the most pressing anxieties and ideologies of our day.

This series of reflections comes together as an artfully sustained meditation on American consciousness and experience, discrete episodes converging, as in the author's fiction, to form a luminous whole--a "report" by turns touching and funny, ironic and exalted, and, in its unique way, universally to the point.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"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.

Rich with philosophical asides, historical speculations, personal observations, and literary judgments, Reporting the Universe ranges from the circumstances of Doctorow's own boyhood and early work to the state of modern society. An account of the "Childhood of a Writer," along with pieces on Kenyon College and the author's first novel, comprise a pocket-sized memoir. In reflections on Emerson, on "texts that are sacred, texts that are not," and on literature and religion Doctorow concerns himself with the status and fate of literature. And in "Why We Are Infidels" and "The Politics of God" he engages some of the most pressing anxieties and ideologies of our day.

This series of reflections comes together as an artfully sustained meditation on American consciousness and experience, discrete episodes converging, as in the author's fiction, to form a luminous whole—a "report" by turns touching and funny, ironic and exalted, and, in its unique way, universally to the point.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

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

Publishers Weekly

Whether he's contemplating the irony of our "God-soaked country" being officially secular, or his father's love of Edgar Allan Poe, "our greatest bad writer" (for whom he was named Edgar), or deriding the "mendacity" of politicians, Doctorow is here, as in his fiction, a wordsmith of the first order. It's a pleasure to read these essays-some autobiographical, some literary, some dealing with issues of the day-full of memorable phrases and evocative images, as well as incisive ideas. While recovering from a burst appendix as a boy during the Depression, he discovered Jack London, whose tales made him long to leave his difficult life in the Bronx "to be in the wild, loping at the head of my pack, ready to leap up and plunge my incisors into the throats of all who would harm me or my family." For readers who aren't familiar with Doctorow's work, this is a delightful and bracing introduction. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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