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Get a Life
by Gordimer, Nadine
- Used
- Hardcover
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
(Cape Town: David Philip, 2005). 8vo; original black cloth; pictorial dustwrapper; pp. (x) + 187. Fine condition. "Paul Bannerman, an ecologist in Africa, believes he controls the trajectory of his life, with the markers of vocation and marriage. But when he's diagnosed with thyroid cancer and prescribed treatment that makes him radioactive and for a period a danger to others, he questions, as Auden wrote, 'What authority gives/ Existence its surprise.' Taken in by his parents, businessman Adrian and successful lawyer Lyndsay, to protect his wife and child from radiation, back in his childhood garden he faces the contradiction between the values of his conservation work and those of his wife, an advertising agency executive. While threats of projects to build a nuclear reactor and drain the country's vital wetlands preoccupy Paul, the strange state of his existence leads his mother to confront her own past. With Paul cured and normality apparently returned, his parents take a holiday in Mexico to fulfil the archaeological vocation his father missed. The consequence of this is the final surprise of passionate existences." .
Synopsis
Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer follows the inner lives of characters confronted by unforeseen circumstances. Paul Bannerman, an ecologist in South Africa, believes he understands the trajectory of his life, with the usual markers of vocation and marriage. But when he's diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, after surgery, prescribed treatment that will leave him radioactive-and for a period a danger to others-he begins to question, as Auden wrote, "what Authority gives / existence its surprise." As Paul recuperates in the garden of his childhood home, he enters an unthinkable existence and another kind of illumination-a process that will irrevocably change not only his life but the lives of his wife and parents. BACKCOVER: "More profound, more searching, more accomplished than what she was writing earlier in her long and distinguished career." - Los Angeles Times "Nadine Gordimer's work is endowed with an emotional genius so palpable one experiences it like a finger pressing steadily upon the prose." - The Village Voice "A timely novel and a provocative one: a novel to enjoy and ponder, as its characters all do, the dizzying complications inherent in human choice." - The Washington Times "I will always be grateful for the presence in the world of Nadine Gordimer, who has delivered in literature a South Africa most of us could not have known without her." -Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe
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Details
- Bookseller
- Christison Rare Books, IOBA SABDA
(ZA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 146
- Title
- Get a Life
- Author
- Gordimer, Nadine
- Book Condition
- Used
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- (Cape Town: David Philip, 2005)
- Keywords
- South African Literature. Novels South African Literature
- Bookseller catalogs
- South African Literature;
Terms of Sale
Christison Rare Books, IOBA SABDA
All books offered subject to availability. Returns are accepted where we have erred materially in our description of goods.
About the Seller
Christison Rare Books, IOBA SABDA
Biblio member since 2018
Port Elizabeth
About Christison Rare Books, IOBA SABDA
Christison Rare Books operates as a mail order business, based in Port Elizabeth. We are members of IOBA and SABDA. Whereas we stock thousands of books on a wide variety of subjects, our focus has always been on SE Africa - its peoples, wildlife and history. The store is managed by Lindsay Christison. Although we do not run an open book shop, prospective customers who would like to examine items described in our on-line list of stock are welcome to make an appointment.
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- Fine
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