Scan barcode
A review by storycraft
A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
4.0
The action of this book takes place in a relatively short period of time, perhaps a few weeks or months. However, it's late in life for main character Franklin Hata and he is in a reflective mode. Through his reflections, the reader learns piecemeal about his background.
One of the fascinating things about this book is the way details about events or characters are revealed only once the reader assumes they understand the situation. A crucial detail about his adopted daughter is only revealed after you've read about half the novel, and yet it changes everything about how you understand their relationship.
It's a contemplative novel with a main character who is concerned with avoiding choices. He yearns for a simple, predictable life in which roles are clear and responsibilities can be taken care of with great attention to detail. But the world doesn't work that way and in order to live a full life, emotions and choices are necessarily involved.
This book wasn't an easy read, but it is rewarding. It's about the consequences of passiveness and what it might take to move an individual towards making their life happen instead of letting it happen to them. It's about how a refusal to take emotional risks failed a well-meaning man in both love and fatherhood.
In the end it's also a redemptive story about a man who refused to choose finally taking action, making a choice, and finding some forward movement to propel him through the last phase of his life.
One of the fascinating things about this book is the way details about events or characters are revealed only once the reader assumes they understand the situation. A crucial detail about his adopted daughter is only revealed after you've read about half the novel, and yet it changes everything about how you understand their relationship.
It's a contemplative novel with a main character who is concerned with avoiding choices. He yearns for a simple, predictable life in which roles are clear and responsibilities can be taken care of with great attention to detail. But the world doesn't work that way and in order to live a full life, emotions and choices are necessarily involved.
This book wasn't an easy read, but it is rewarding. It's about the consequences of passiveness and what it might take to move an individual towards making their life happen instead of letting it happen to them. It's about how a refusal to take emotional risks failed a well-meaning man in both love and fatherhood.
In the end it's also a redemptive story about a man who refused to choose finally taking action, making a choice, and finding some forward movement to propel him through the last phase of his life.