"Uncounted billions of years idle away as this single-cell organism, this speck of corruption, this submicroscopic breach of non-life, evolves selectively through realms of slime and armor-plated brutishness, past experimental kingdoms of horses two feet tall and lizards that fly, into the triumphant dominions of the furry self-improving bipeds, those of the opposed thumb and forefinger, who will lope out of prehistory to sublime into a teenage nerd at the Bronx High School of Science" (Doctorow 11).
In one sentence, Doctorow goes through the history of biological life and ends with a sarcastic comment about a teenage student. While beautifully written that gives even "realms of slime and armor-plated brutishness" some sense of poetic justice, Doctorow managed to twist the beauty of the evolution of human life into an introduction of a relatively comical character that almost parallels an opening monologue of a Nickelodeon show.
Due to the numerous storylines throughout the novel, the reader often finds oneself lost among the tangled threads that act as the thoughts Everett wrote in his sketchbook, City of God. Doctorow even finds ways to express his sarcastic disbelief in religious beings through the main character, Pem, who is a reverend nonetheless. Consider, for example, this quote of a prayer spoken by Pem in regards to a statement he should make about the robbery surrounding his church: "So I pray, Lord, don't let me come up with something only a reprimand. Let me have the good stuff. Speak to me. Send me an E-mail" (Doctorow 42). Not only does Doctorow write prayer in the same manner a theatrical member of the Italian mob might persuade his drug dealer to give him the "good stuff", but he also adds an embellishment of the twenty- first century: the persuasion of sending an email – and to God nevertheless! The informality Doctorow chose to use in relations between a pastor and his God is completely bizarre; truly a risky literary move that paid off in terms of post-modernism writing.
