Get a Life
Get a Life by Nadine Gordimer is a reprint edition published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2005, featuring 187 pages in English. This work delves into the inner lives of characters facing unexpected challenges, centering on Paul Bannerman, an ecologist in South Africa. Following a diagnosis of thyroid cancer, Paul’s life takes a dramatic turn as he navigates the complexities of his condition and its impact on his relationships, prompting him to reevaluate his understanding of existence.
Readers will find a narrative that explores psychological and medical themes, as Paul recuperates in the garden of his childhood home. This period of reflection leads him to confront profound questions about life and authority, ultimately transforming not only his own perspective but also that of his wife and parents. Through this exploration, Gordimer presents a nuanced examination of human choice and the unforeseen circumstances that shape our lives.
Official synopsis Publisher
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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