Gestures - Softcover

Bhabra, H. S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 156792235X ISBN 13: 9781567922356

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2003

Synopsis

Gestures, the sole novel of an unknown Canadian writer who died tragically in 2000, is the elegant, beautifully crafted, gripping autobiography of one Jeremy Burnham, career diplomat and English gentleman, who in his 83rd year sits down to write his version of political upheavals, emotional displacements and personal losses encountered in a career spent in the "forgotten and superseded sport of diplomacy." His story, which in so many ways captures the flux and turmoil of the last century, begins in Venice in the twenties, just as the Fascists are taking over the government, and ends in war-torn Amsterdam, desperate and destitute after the Allied victory.

About this title

From Library Journal

At 83, Jeremy Burnham, ex-Foreign Service Officer and self-described conventional Englishman, sets out to write his memoirs. He finds himself focusing on two brief episodes in his career, connected only because they concern his friendship with the Jewish Anthony Manet, one of the last members of the intellectual, liberal, cosmopolitan subculture that flourished in Europe prior to World War I, and the question of where one's responsibilities lie when faced with man's inhumanity to man. Whether one is considering a murder in Venice in 1923 or Nazi collaborators in the Netherlands following World War II, the answer to that question is more complex than one might like. Readers seeking fast-paced action will be disappointed with Bhabra's first novel, but those who are patient will find its richness and complexity rewarding. Recommended. David W. Henderson, Eck erd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 156792235X
• ISBN 13: 9781567922356
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 318