A year of bones, of grave-dirt, relentless work. Of mummified corpses and chanting priests.
A year of rape, suicide, sudden death. Of friendship too. Of desire. Of love...
A year unlike any other he has lived.
Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it.
At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task for a modern man of reason. But before long, he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own.
Pure
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* THE 2011 COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR* (. )
Every so often a historical novel comes along that is so natural, so far from pastiche, so modern, that it thrills and expands the mind. PURE is one . . . Exquisite inside and out, PURE is a near-faultless thing: detailed, symbolic and richly evocative of a time, place and man in dangerous flux. It is brilliance distilled, with very few impurities. (Holly Kyte, Sunday Telegraph )
The writing throughout is crystalline, uncontrived, striking and intelligent. You could call it pure. (Jonathan Beckman, Literary Review )
Quietly powerful, consistently surprising, PURE is a fine addition to substantial body of work (Suzi Feay, Financial Times )
His recreation of pre-Revolutionary Paris is extraordinarily vivid and imaginative, and his story is so gripping that you'll put your life on hold to finish it. Expect this on the Booker longlist, at the very least (The Times )
Miller writes like a poet, with a deceptive simplicity - his sentences and images are intense distillations, conjuring the fleeting details of existence with clarity. He is also a very humane writer, whose philosophy is tempered always with an understanding of the flaws and failings of ordinary people...Pure defies the ordinary conventions of storytelling, slipping dream-like between lucidity and a kind of abstracted elusiveness... As Miller proves with this dazzling novel, it is not certainty we need but courage (Clare Clark, Guardian )
almost dreamlike, a realistic fantasy, a violent fairytale for adults (Brian Lynch, Irish Times )
Andrew Miller employs his considerable elan in evoking places and cultures remote in time, establishing a tone which is flexible enough to encompass the poetic, the seriocomic and the hauntingly melancholy... Pure's evocation of the cemetery and the surrounding neighbourhood is vivid and compelling (Adam O'Riordan, TLS )
Murder, rape, seduction and madness impel this elegant novel . . . Within this physical and political decay, Miller couches the heart of the matter: how to live one's life with personal integrity, with a purity not so much morally unblemished as unalloyed with the fads and opinions of society . . . Miller populates Baratte's quest for equanimity with lush and tart characters, seductively fleshed out, who collectively help to deliver the bittersweet resolution of his professional and personal travails. (James Urquhart, Independent )
Very atmospheric... Although the theme may sound macabre, Miller's eloquent novel overflows with vitality and colour. It is packed with personal and physical details that evoke 18th-century Paris with startling immediacy. Above all he brings off that difficult trick of making the reader care about an unsymapthetic character. If you enjoyed Patrick Suskind's Perfume, you'll love this. (Daily Express )
This is a tale about "the beauty and mystery of what is most ordinary"... Miller lingers up close on details: sour breath, decaying objects, pretty clothes, flames, smells, eyelashes... He is also alive to the dramatic possibilities offered by late-18th-century Paris, a fetid and intoxicating city on the brink of revolution... Miller intimately and pacily imagines how it might have felt to witness it. (Daily Telegraph )
the book pulls off an ambitious project: to evoke a complex historical period through a tissue of deftly selected details. (David Grylls, Sunday Times, Culture )
Miller generates dynamic comedy and drama from juxtaposing the earthy, bodily realities of the Enlightenment against lofty aspirations of reason and progress. It's engrossing historical fiction. (The Age, Australia )
a pacey, well-constructed narrative in which rape, suicide, love and unexplained deaths all play a part. Miller wears his learning lightly and infuses his story with humanity and warmth. (Max Davidson, Mail on Sunday )
Every so often a historical novel comes along that is so natural, so far from pastiche, so modern, that it thrills and expands the mind. PURE is one . . . Exquisite inside and out, PURE is a near-faultless thing: detailed, symbolic and richly evocative of a time, place and man in dangerous flux. It is brilliance distilled, with very few impurities. (Holly Kyte, Sunday Telegraph )
The writing throughout is crystalline, uncontrived, striking and intelligent. You could call it pure. (Jonathan Beckman, Literary Review )
Quietly powerful, consistently surprising, PURE is a fine addition to substantial body of work (Suzi Feay, Financial Times )
His recreation of pre-Revolutionary Paris is extraordinarily vivid and imaginative, and his story is so gripping that you'll put your life on hold to finish it. Expect this on the Booker longlist, at the very least (The Times )
Miller writes like a poet, with a deceptive simplicity - his sentences and images are intense distillations, conjuring the fleeting details of existence with clarity. He is also a very humane writer, whose philosophy is tempered always with an understanding of the flaws and failings of ordinary people...Pure defies the ordinary conventions of storytelling, slipping dream-like between lucidity and a kind of abstracted elusiveness... As Miller proves with this dazzling novel, it is not certainty we need but courage (Clare Clark, Guardian )
almost dreamlike, a realistic fantasy, a violent fairytale for adults (Brian Lynch, Irish Times )
Andrew Miller employs his considerable elan in evoking places and cultures remote in time, establishing a tone which is flexible enough to encompass the poetic, the seriocomic and the hauntingly melancholy... Pure's evocation of the cemetery and the surrounding neighbourhood is vivid and compelling (Adam O'Riordan, TLS )
Murder, rape, seduction and madness impel this elegant novel . . . Within this physical and political decay, Miller couches the heart of the matter: how to live one's life with personal integrity, with a purity not so much morally unblemished as unalloyed with the fads and opinions of society . . . Miller populates Baratte's quest for equanimity with lush and tart characters, seductively fleshed out, who collectively help to deliver the bittersweet resolution of his professional and personal travails. (James Urquhart, Independent )
Very atmospheric... Although the theme may sound macabre, Miller's eloquent novel overflows with vitality and colour. It is packed with personal and physical details that evoke 18th-century Paris with startling immediacy. Above all he brings off that difficult trick of making the reader care about an unsymapthetic character. If you enjoyed Patrick Suskind's Perfume, you'll love this. (Daily Express )
This is a tale about "the beauty and mystery of what is most ordinary"... Miller lingers up close on details: sour breath, decaying objects, pretty clothes, flames, smells, eyelashes... He is also alive to the dramatic possibilities offered by late-18th-century Paris, a fetid and intoxicating city on the brink of revolution... Miller intimately and pacily imagines how it might have felt to witness it. (Daily Telegraph )
the book pulls off an ambitious project: to evoke a complex historical period through a tissue of deftly selected details. (David Grylls, Sunday Times, Culture )
Miller generates dynamic comedy and drama from juxtaposing the earthy, bodily realities of the Enlightenment against lofty aspirations of reason and progress. It's engrossing historical fiction. (The Age, Australia )
a pacey, well-constructed narrative in which rape, suicide, love and unexplained deaths all play a part. Miller wears his learning lightly and infuses his story with humanity and warmth. (Max Davidson, Mail on Sunday )
About the Author
Andrew Miller was born in Bristol in 1960. He has lived in Spain, Japan, Ireland and France, and currently lives in Somerset. His first novel, INGENIOUS PAIN, was published by Sceptre in 1997 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour prize in Italy. He has since written four novels: CASANOVA, OXYGEN, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Booker Prize in 2001, THE OPTIMISTS, and ONE MORNING LIKE A BIRD.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
180 of 188 people found the following review helpful
By J. Aitken
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Andrew Miller is a writer new to me, but on the evidence of this excellent book I have ordered a number of his other novels to read.
The story is a deceptively simple one concerning a young engineer from Normandy who is charged with the task of overseeing the destruction of the cemetery and church of Les Innocents in Les Halles in Paris in 1785. Miller is brilliant at evoking the period, and peoples his tale with a cast of fully fledged characters whose lives react with the engineer, Jean-Baptiste Baratte. In this year of work Baratte grows as a person and this in itself is worth the price of the book, but where Miller really scores is in his subtle laying out the undercurrents of disquiet and unrest which would eventually lead to bloodshed and revolution. From the dog pissing on the parquet of the neglected Palace of Versailles to the mysterious graffiti which appears threatening change, this is a city on the cusp of something terrible.
The removal of the bones of the dead accompanied by disgruntled priests singing prayers seems a shadow of what will come. All this is accomplished in the most wonderful prose. Miller has an absolute gift for finding the most apposite phrase.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and recommend it very highly indeed.
The story is a deceptively simple one concerning a young engineer from Normandy who is charged with the task of overseeing the destruction of the cemetery and church of Les Innocents in Les Halles in Paris in 1785. Miller is brilliant at evoking the period, and peoples his tale with a cast of fully fledged characters whose lives react with the engineer, Jean-Baptiste Baratte. In this year of work Baratte grows as a person and this in itself is worth the price of the book, but where Miller really scores is in his subtle laying out the undercurrents of disquiet and unrest which would eventually lead to bloodshed and revolution. From the dog pissing on the parquet of the neglected Palace of Versailles to the mysterious graffiti which appears threatening change, this is a city on the cusp of something terrible.
The removal of the bones of the dead accompanied by disgruntled priests singing prayers seems a shadow of what will come. All this is accomplished in the most wonderful prose. Miller has an absolute gift for finding the most apposite phrase.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and recommend it very highly indeed.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By Sarah Burns
Format:Paperback
Pure was loaned to me by a colleague, who promised that the book was beautifully written. I can't argue with that, it certainly is. It's almost poetic in it's form, and the author has a really good way with words and the descriptive nature of the writing is sublime.
I found it a bit of an unusual novel, for the first 100 pages or so, it felt like not a lot happened, and the story ambled along following Jean Baptiste, the young engineer, as he was tasked with the unenviable task of moving the cemetery of `Les Innocents' and the accompanying church.
I'm not sure accurate the book is in terms of the historical context, I've read a few reviews on amazon where Miller has been criticised for his historical accuracy, but, I guess as long as you're not looking for a reference book, some poetic licence is OK. The prose is atmospheric and descriptive and you get a fill for Jean Baptiste, his living arrangements with the Monanrds and the cemetery itself.
In terms of the quality of the prose, this is a five star book, but for me, the story lacked a bit of depth and real `oommpph' in terms of the twists and turns you might expect.
It's worth a look, but I think just judging by the array of amazon reviews, this is a bit of a marmite book.
I found it a bit of an unusual novel, for the first 100 pages or so, it felt like not a lot happened, and the story ambled along following Jean Baptiste, the young engineer, as he was tasked with the unenviable task of moving the cemetery of `Les Innocents' and the accompanying church.
I'm not sure accurate the book is in terms of the historical context, I've read a few reviews on amazon where Miller has been criticised for his historical accuracy, but, I guess as long as you're not looking for a reference book, some poetic licence is OK. The prose is atmospheric and descriptive and you get a fill for Jean Baptiste, his living arrangements with the Monanrds and the cemetery itself.
In terms of the quality of the prose, this is a five star book, but for me, the story lacked a bit of depth and real `oommpph' in terms of the twists and turns you might expect.
It's worth a look, but I think just judging by the array of amazon reviews, this is a bit of a marmite book.
115 of 124 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Initially I approached this book with some caution. The only other Andrew Miller novel I'd read many years before was Ingenious Pain, and although I could see that it was a great novel, I did find it hard going at the time. The premise of his latest though was so attractive, and by the second chapter I was hooked on this rather original historical novel.
Pure is set in 1785, shortly before the French Revolution. Jean-Baptiste Baratte is a young Norman engineer, hired by the King's offices to oversee the cleansing of an overfilled and now closed Parisian cemetery and its church, that is poisoning the earth and air all around it. Nice job eh? Jean-Baptiste heads off into Paris, where lodgings have been set up with a local family overlooking the cemetery. He soon makes friends with Armand, the church organist, and finds that everything smells better after a brandy or two. He contacts his colleague from his last job at the mines at Valenciennes - Lecoeur will bring a team of miners to Paris to dig out the cemetery. Jeanne, the teenaged grand-daughter of the sexton will look after the men - indeed most of them grow to love her as their own daughter.
All is set and the excavation is underway. Some doctors arrive, including one Dr Guillotin - yes! He is there to examine the bones, but his presence will prove necessary on many occasions over the following months - injury, illness, attempted murder, rape, suicide - everything will happen to those involved on this job. But it's not all bad, for Jean-Baptiste will also find love in an unexpected place.
The story is entirely that of Jean Baptiste - he is present on every page. He's conscientious, and good to his men, but can be persuaded to let his hair down occasionally. The young engineer is a very likeable hero and an interesting young man. In between the gruelling work to reclaim the ground from the cemetery, we do get glimpses of the bustling markets and streets around the Les Halles area of Paris where the novel is set, and even radical murmurings. The historical detail is both rich and absolutely spot on. I liked the way Miller echoed Victor Hugo's style in describing Baratte's previous patron as the 'Compte de S-'.
The major business of the novel is the job in hand though. In this respect, (with my tongue in my cheek slightly), it is the opposite of Ken Follett's enjoyable blockbuster novel The Pillars of the Earth, in which a cathedral is built over generations rather, than a church removed in a year. In both, however, the work is the star - and it was actually fascinating to read.
I will have to re-read Ingenious Pain and catch up on others of Miller's backlist - I do have most of them in the TBR, as I enjoyed Pure very much indeed. This was a brilliant historical novel with literary nous, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see it as a Booker longlist contender.
Pure is set in 1785, shortly before the French Revolution. Jean-Baptiste Baratte is a young Norman engineer, hired by the King's offices to oversee the cleansing of an overfilled and now closed Parisian cemetery and its church, that is poisoning the earth and air all around it. Nice job eh? Jean-Baptiste heads off into Paris, where lodgings have been set up with a local family overlooking the cemetery. He soon makes friends with Armand, the church organist, and finds that everything smells better after a brandy or two. He contacts his colleague from his last job at the mines at Valenciennes - Lecoeur will bring a team of miners to Paris to dig out the cemetery. Jeanne, the teenaged grand-daughter of the sexton will look after the men - indeed most of them grow to love her as their own daughter.
All is set and the excavation is underway. Some doctors arrive, including one Dr Guillotin - yes! He is there to examine the bones, but his presence will prove necessary on many occasions over the following months - injury, illness, attempted murder, rape, suicide - everything will happen to those involved on this job. But it's not all bad, for Jean-Baptiste will also find love in an unexpected place.
The story is entirely that of Jean Baptiste - he is present on every page. He's conscientious, and good to his men, but can be persuaded to let his hair down occasionally. The young engineer is a very likeable hero and an interesting young man. In between the gruelling work to reclaim the ground from the cemetery, we do get glimpses of the bustling markets and streets around the Les Halles area of Paris where the novel is set, and even radical murmurings. The historical detail is both rich and absolutely spot on. I liked the way Miller echoed Victor Hugo's style in describing Baratte's previous patron as the 'Compte de S-'.
The major business of the novel is the job in hand though. In this respect, (with my tongue in my cheek slightly), it is the opposite of Ken Follett's enjoyable blockbuster novel The Pillars of the Earth, in which a cathedral is built over generations rather, than a church removed in a year. In both, however, the work is the star - and it was actually fascinating to read.
I will have to re-read Ingenious Pain and catch up on others of Miller's backlist - I do have most of them in the TBR, as I enjoyed Pure very much indeed. This was a brilliant historical novel with literary nous, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see it as a Booker longlist contender.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautifully written and atmospheric novel....
In 1785 a young engineer from Normandy is charged with the demolition of a church and cemetery in les Halles district of Paris. Read more
Published 3 days ago by Wynne Kelly
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pure by Andrew Miller
I found this book hard going. Perhaps I missed the point of it but I cannot understand why it was a prizewinner.
Published 6 days ago by Mrs C Nice
5.0 out of 5 stars
A compelling and interesting read
Not sure what to expect when I started reading this book, however I quickly got into it and found it a compelling and interesting read.
Published 11 days ago by MCurie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Historical Paris
A fascinating historical novel, I would recommend it to anyone, possibly with the warning that it is not for the squeamish.
Published 11 days ago by Mr. M. J. Wykeham
2.0 out of 5 stars
pure it is not
a bit morbid - paris cemetery - bad air - deaths and injuries, prostitutes and not a lot of bonnes actes
apart from jeanne, heloise and jean-baptiste who struggle hard but... Read more
apart from jeanne, heloise and jean-baptiste who struggle hard but... Read more
Published 13 days ago by twlbailey
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating and gripping
The initial concept of the subject of this book is weird and gruesome ... but it drew me in and kept me wondering what on earth was going to happen next? Read more
Published 15 days ago by MR M HURST
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pure
Fantasy or dreamlike story with authentic sixteenth century setting, atmospheric and elaborate but an easy and enjoyable read, but read it
Published 18 days ago by Gregarious
4.0 out of 5 stars
A really enjoyable book
I really enjoyed this book, Andrew Miller had done his reasurch about Les Innocents cementry in Paris and his characters came to life as the story progressed .
Published 23 days ago by Lucinda Cadenne
4.0 out of 5 stars
"The work will be both delicate and gross..."
In the years 1785 to 1787, on the eve of the French Revolution, the notorious and evil-smelling Cimetière des Saints-Innocents in central Paris was cleared of its vast and... Read more
Published 28 days ago by Glimmung
5.0 out of 5 stars
Appeals to male and female readers
We did this book for book group and agreed it was a great read.
The story concentrates on a young engineer in Paris, just before the French Revolution. Read more
The story concentrates on a young engineer in Paris, just before the French Revolution. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Countrylady
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