From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

All I wished for was to be part, if but a millionth, of the massing, and that I pass through with something more than a life of gestures. And yet, I see now, I was in fact a critical part of events, as were K and the other girls, and the soldiers, and the rest ... indeed, the horror of it was how central we were. How ingenuously, and not, we comprised the larger processes, feeding ourselves, and one another, to the all-consuming engine of the war.

“One of the characters, I believe it's Sunny, says, 'You lead a life of gestures.' What she means by that is that he's always there for protocol and decorum rather than saying the thing that needs to be said or doing the thing that needs to be done: to say no in a certain instance, and not to be involved in something horrible, not to implicate himself, and not to always try to assimilate and compromise. That's one of the things that he's figuring out about the way in which he's run his life, which has been a complete mode of gestures and politeness--but politeness to an extreme."

“One of the things that was very difficult as I wrote this book is that I didn't connect with him either. He's a very difficult sort of person and he's very frustrating. By the end, my wife and editor will tell you, I hated him because you have to sit with him all day and the ways in which he constructs friendships, and his memory--it's maddening. Yes, he has likable aspects and it's clear that people see him and like him. That was one of the most difficult things about writing this book. It's not just the sort of character he is, but he's the only one telling you the story, in first person. I had to find a way to get around him a lot of the time."