Gestures: A Novel

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.

Review
"A first novel of unusual sophistication and complexity." -- Robertson Davies

"Bhabra pulls off this feat of make-believe with such stunning conviction and aplomb that we're tempted to believe in reincarnation. It is, in short, a virtuoso performance, particularly for a first novel... Bhabra writes with remarkable urbanity, wisdom and sophistication... Gestures is that rare creation -- a provocative, intelligent novel with an almost perfect balance between ideas and action." -- The Globe and Mail

"A poignant tale of betrayal and corruption." -- Susan Swan

"The most impressive quality of Gestures is a patient, muscular seriousness that dares to dive to the depths of human experience: the book has the density and sonorousness of real art." -- Maclean's


"What is extraordinary about Gestures, besides its sheer readability, is that rich mix of urbane wit and sardonic commentary on the human condition -- The portrait of evil in a world of crisis and rendered from exceptionally close focus, frighteningly so." -- William Wiser, author of Disappearances

"To read Gestures is to be absorbed into a world so authentic, so fully summoned, so delicately shaded with personality and event, that one's own world quickly pales. It is a subtle and elegant novel, pulsing with intelligence. As all great stories do, it has the possibility of altering the ways in which we see the world." -- Neil Bissoondath


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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.


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