Pure

by Andrew Miller

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.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, France, Historical, Book Club, Literary Fiction, 18th Century

346 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

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. His second novel, CASANOVA, was published in 1998, followed by OXYGEN, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Booker Prize in 2001, and THE OPTIMISTS, published in 2005.

Reviews

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ended up feeling a bit let down by Pure. Miller is a luscious writer -- never a word wrong as he sketches a 1785 Paris that is about to boil over (but hasn't yet). He achieves a masterful balance between enough historical detail so that you can see, taste, and (unfortunately) smell the book's setting without ever seeming didactic or overly lecturing (ahem, Amitav Ghosh -- who I read simultaneously with this). Indeed, the prose is so graceful that the whole book has a sensuous feel despite the macabre aspects of the plot and ghoulish setting.

Why only a 3 then? Well, because the book's touch is so light as to seem insubstantial. While the sketch like approach often works (the portrait of Heloise, in particular, before she moves in with Jean Baptiste is a powerful miniature), the whole book ends up seeming incomplete or inconsequential -- perhaps intentionally as we are waiting for the cataclysm to come in 4 years. But what of Ziguette? What is that whole subplot meant to mean? What of the graffiti? The sum of the parts, often exquisite in themselves, is oddly inconsequential.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My second Andrew Miller novel in succession and both have been five star reads. Jean-Baptiste Baratte is an aspiring engineer from the provinces who is commissioned to remove a large pestilent cemetery and church in a poor district of Paris. It soon becomes clear he is viewed as little more than a lackey by the faceless powers of the ruling class. Pure is a very astute and convincing depiction of the psychology of Paris in the years before the terror arrived. The cemetery and church acts as a microcosm of the social forces active in the whole of France at the time. Barette finds himself caught between the workers and the overlords. When he falls in love with a prostitute his loyalties become clearer. His idealism begins a slow subtle shift from the personal to the political.

On the whole I preferred Now We Shall Be Entirely Free because the writing was better and the danger was more pressing. Pure though is probably more artistically ambitious and successful as a novel. One thing's for sure, Anthony Miller is a fabulous writer.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

But what is the significance of the elephant; I don't understand about the elephant.

At one point, one of the characters says 'That is a metaphor', another responds 'A metaphor? Where did you go to school ?'

And the first speaker answers 'Nogent-le-Rotrou'.

This little dialogue sums up part of my difficulties with this book. Firstly Andrew Miller absolutely crams this novel to the brim with metaphor. Secondly some of the dialogue seems too anachronistic and thirdly , and this is obviously my problem but after all this is my review so you are stuck with my struggles, I could not always fathom whether Miller's characters were being sarcastic, honest, naive ,witty or just plain stupid.


It is set four years before the horrendous bloodletting of the French Revolution and Terror and it covers the work by a young engineer who is given the less than pleasant duty of removing a whole cemetery from the centre of Paris by removing its Church, defunct inmates and living servants and eradicating its looming presence from the locals' memories.


The novel's title then, 'Pure', obviously cries out as metaphor in itself. From the superifial one, the purifying of the ground through removal of bones and the in-filling the holes with quicklime onto the purifying of society through the upcoming revolution which we catch glimpses of shimmering in the near future through daubed slogans and whispered threats. (We sit as gods, well aware of what lies in store for the self satisfied aristocracy of the ancien regime who are soon to be swept away into horror and the agonizingly unimagined end of their lifestyle but, of course none of the characters know any more than their ideals and fleeting imaginings; we alone know the reality ahead).

Or does it refer to the purity of motives or otherwise of those involved in the action, or is it the sexual purity of the old sexton's granddaughter or again the redeeming nature of the 'impure' harlot's love, cleansing and resurrecting hope and trust in the hero or is it again about the pure notes of the organ which creaks and groans in the background throughout the story gradually lessening and growing discordant or again the purity which everyone loses as they come more and more into contact with the vile smell of rotting corpses and a glutted earth. Now you see, that is a lot of links and references to attach to one word but I do not think I have excavated, if you'll pardon the pun, even half of the 'significances' that can be drawn from the story.

Miller purposefully loads image upon image and metaphor upon metaphor but the story seems too lightweight to hold it. The scaffold that his engineer and the miners construct to hold back the onslaught of rotting soil and decomposition as they dig deeper is flimsy and weak and i cannot help but think that their scaffold is a metaphor for his story.


There are some beautifully observed passages of description and some strikingly simple sentences which simply give you clearly the image he wants you to see. This is a magnificent talent and it is lovely when it is encountered.


'Over Paris, the stars are fragments of a glass ball flung at the sky.......The streetlamps are guttering. For their last half-hour they burn a smoky orange and illuminate nothing but themselves'


Of Versailles and its mirrors


'Living here, it must be impossible not to meet yourself a hundred times a day, every corridor a source of vanity and doubt.'

Or again the gradually 'de-built' Church


'Beams of light spread out until seperate shafts become a jagged fringe moving slowly north....By the end of the month light laps at the edge of the nave, streaks the choir, pools by the foot of the altar'


Here to me he ingeniously manages to conjure up the incoming light and yet pairing it with words which, within the context, manages to communicate filth and an oily viscous mess which sullies rather than cleanses. It is simple yet profound, he chooses words and conjures a clear picture. Yet this talent seems to me sometimes, to continue the foulness of the analogy, to be pissed away into the sand. He exhausts his readers with intent or significance and so the book is flowing along powerfully and methodically but then is suddenly stumbling over misplaced sentences or details and the atmosphere or tension is punctured and dissipated.

Maybe it is just me but I struggled with this book which is such a shame because Miller appears to me to be an excellent writer and maybe he wanted to write something towering and momentous but does so half-cocked..


The ending is odd. I was left unsatisfied but not in any sense that it enabled me to imagine what their future was. I did not find myself thinking which of these survived the Terror, which of them indulged in it, how did they fare in the years ahead. I found I did not really care. Is that something lacking in me, or was it a clever construct by Miller that his characters were too caught up in the decay and grossness of the charnel pits to grow on or was it something lacking in his story in and of itself? Maybe there is another metaphor to be going along with.


The back of these books is never a good guide to whether you will like it or not. The publishers used a review by a Holly Kyte of the Sunday Telegraph. She breathlessly gushes and uses words such as near-faultless and brilliance distilled. This novel, according to her ' thrills and expands the mind'.


As she evidently understands it more than I did maybe i should ask her: 'What in the Name of all that's holy was the significance of the bloody elephant !!'

[TheGirlBytheSeaofCortez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure, Andrew Miller’s sixth novel, takes place in 1785, in Paris, as Normandy engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte is summoned to the Palace of Versailles. There, Baratte, who is a graduate of the Ecole Royale des Ponts et Chaussées, is commissioned by the State to demolish the ancient cemetery beneath the church of “Les Innocents” in central Paris, and dispose of the thousands of bodies buried there.

The cemetery is far too close to the famous markets of Les Halles. The many bodies, whose fat refuses to decompose “properly” and saturates the ground instead, are causing the entire area to smell horribly. Even the food is being affected. “Les Innocents” – both the church and the cemetery – are now closed after human remains broke through a wall into the cellar of a neighboring tenement. Baratte will oversee the year long moving of the graves and charnel pits as well as the transportation of the remains to a quarry outside of Paris, an act that is supposed to “cleanse” or “purify” the church and the surrounding land.

Baratte, of course, can’t do all of this alone, so he calls on a friend, Lecoeur, who brings a group of sturdy and stoic Belgian miners to help get the job done. As the project gets underway, Baratte is both sickened and humiliated, but he’s accepted an advance from the State, and he’s also a forward looking man of reason, not of emotion or superstition. He tells himself he is only sweeping away the “poisonous influence of the past” and that he and his team will be “the men who will purify Paris!”

Although Baratte tries to console himself with thoughts of the good he’s doing, his task seems destined to failure from the very beginning, a failure that’s symbolized in the part of France that Baratte calls home. Baratte and Lecoeur have invented what they consider to be an ideal society and have named it Valenciana, derived not from Valencia, Spain, but from Valenciennes, France, the terrible, and terribly dirty, coal mining town in Normandy from which Baratte and Lecoeur both hail.

One would think the Parisian residents in the immediate vicinity of “Les Innocents” would welcome the purification Baratte and his miners are undertaking, however, surprisingly, some of them oppose it, among them the family – the Monnards – with whom Baratte lodges. Ziguette, the unmarried daughter of the house, is so incensed that she attacks Baratte in the middle of the night with a hammer.

Ziguette isn’t the only local with whom Baratte forms a difficult relationship during his year of digging and purification. Besides the somber Monnards and their beautiful but strange daughter, and Lecoeur, of course, there’s Jeanne, the sexton’s fourteen-year-old granddaughter, a sensitive and gentle girl who’s lived her entire life to date among the dead. By helping Baratte identify the graves, Jeanne tells him she is forced “to assist in the destruction of her little paradise.” There’s the mad priest of “Les Innocents,” Père Colbert, the stylish organist, Armand, who takes Baratte in hand and shows him how to dress in the latest fashion. And of course there’s Dr. Guillotin, the levelheaded and very humane man who becomes a part of the demolition and purification for research purposes only, and whose name will forever be linked to a terrible invention used in the coming revolution.

Héloise, however, is the person Baratte grows closest to. She’s the “hooker with a heart of gold,” who manages to retain an air of mystery and who isn’t at all stereotypical despite the way I described her.

All of the above characters and more bring Baratte’s story to life, and all of them are needed by Miller. In this story, everyone has a necessary part to play that can’t be played by anyone else.

Pure is a book filled with action. There’s murder, suicide (and you’ll never guess which character), madness, fire, and sex with a mummified corpse. And why not? Digging up the graves of children who’ve died of plague or young women preserved by embalming day after weary day is enough to drive even the strongest man witless. And the book is, of course, deeply political, though if you don’t like politics, you probably won’t even notice because Pure is, first and foremost, a wonderful, and wonderfully told, story. Still, how could Pure not be political? This is a book that centers on a repressive past that’s making way for the enlightenment of the future. Like most things consigned to the past, however, “Les Innocents” doesn’t give way easily or without a fight. Change is, more often than not, a very painful process.

The mood of Pure is, of course, bleak. And despite all the action in the book, the story often feels ponderous and claustrophobic, but ponderous and claustrophobic in a very good way. The characters may be vivid and colorful, but the atmosphere of Pure is heavy with anticipation and dread. At times, it’s downright creepy. I could see the fog off the Seine shrouding the graves of “Les Innocents” and hear the rain dripping down through the leaves on the stones. We know that a dark cloud is hanging over France, and Miller has succeeded is conveying this dark cloud in his novel. With every page the reader turns, he or she feels that something terrible, something really horrible, is waiting just around the corner.

The writing is flawless, and for me, it was vintage Andrew Miller, reminiscent of his glorious debut novel, Ingenious Pain, also set in the eighteenth century, an age Miller seems especially adept at calling forth in all it’s filth and forward thinking. In Pure, for example, as Baratte waits in the anteroom in Versailles, a small dog fouls the floor, causing Baratte to ponder “the way even a dog's piss is subject to unalterable physical laws.” While Pure is filled with the stench of the Paris streets, threaded through the book is an air of modernity. There are nods to both Voltaire and the importance of public health.

Miller’s descriptive powers have never been better. He writes of eyes as “two black nails hammered into a skull,” and coffins opened “like oysters” and my favorite, “the liquorice shimmer of a human eye.”

This is prose that shimmers and soars. It’s a book one could read for the prose alone, but Miller is far too good a writer not to unsettle us as well. In Pure, he gives us much to think about while we’re marveling at his way with words, thoughts that will linger long after we’ve read the book’s final page.

As Baratte tackles the technical difficulties of his commission, he begins to wonder how to live his own life with purity, and how best to achieve the happiness he so desires. Fittingly, it’s a dog that shows him the way, just as it’s a dog that introduces him to the filth of Paris near the book’s beginning.

I thought this book was flawless. Miller is such an extraordinary writer that I expected much from him, but not this much. Pure is one of those books you only come across three or four times in a lifetime. It’s vivid, it’s elegant, it’s earthy, it’s depressing, it’s vibrant. I can’t say enough good things about the book or Miller, himself. For me, Pure is definitely a work of art (and the cover, a retelling of Goya’s etching titled “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” is both gorgeous and perfect). The only other book I’ve read as brilliant as Pure is Hilary Mantel’s glorious Wolf Hall.

Miller’s novel Oxygen was shortlisted for the Booker in 2001. I expect Pure to at least be shortlisted. If there’s any fairness in life, it should capture the win.

If you’re looking for a highly literary novel that’s as perfect as a book can be, you can’t go wrong with Pure. And if you haven’t yet read Miller’s debut novel, Ingenious Pain, now’s the time to do so. Both books are brilliance distilled in its purest form, guaranteed to please even the most discriminating of readers.

5/5

Recommended: Definitely, and especially for those who enjoy highly literary novels. This is a beautiful book that’s beautifully written. I can’t praise it highly enough.

Read my book reviews and tips for writers at www.literarycornercafe.blogspot.com

[Peter Boyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The year is 1785, and Jean-Baptiste Baratte is a young engineer from Normandy, summoned to Versailles. He hopes that his mission will be to construct some kind of bridge or impressive new building in the French capital. Instead he is told to empty the abandoned cemetery of Les Innocents, a putrid pit of mass graves, and to demolish the adjoining church. Taking up residence in the nearby guesthouse of the Monnard family, he goes about planning the job at hand and hiring the workers he needs. He makes some interesting new friends, such as Armand, the church's eccentric organist. But this enormous task presents a number of unexpected difficulties to Baratte, and he begins to wonder if it will ever be completed.

I'll start with the positives. Andrew Miller paints a wonderfully evocative picture of pre-Revolutionary Paris in this novel. It is a city on the edge, as rebels dare to daub anti-monarchist graffiti on the walls of important buildings, risking life imprisonment in the Bastille. The story is rich in period detail, from the pistachio-green silk suit Baratte regretfully buys after a day drinking with Armand, to the eerie charnel houses where the bones of the dead are stored. The oppressed masses eat cheap, unappetizing food, such as calf's heads, and seek to blot out their worries with gallons of watered-down wine. The smells of the time are vividly rendered, the eye-watering stench of Les Innocents even making its way into the meals prepared by the Monnards.

However, despite its convincing setting, and a number of intriguing secondary characters, the story just didn't come together for me. The narrative lacked momentum, I never felt a sense of urgency that Baratte would not complete his mission. There was something unsatisfying about the climax, it was all a bit too tidy and convenient. And the blurb gave away a number of important plot details, I wish I hadn't read it.

So it's a mixed bag overall. If you're looking for pacy, plot-driven historical fiction, I would steer clear of Pure. But if you would like to read an eloquent, colourful tale of 18th-century Paris, then you will find much to enjoy in this novel.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stink of the Innocents is permeating the soil, the water, and the air of Paris. The rotting remains of the overstuffed cemetery of les Innocents are leaching into the food and even the very skin and breath of the living inhabitants of the surrounding city. The vast yard of bones and soupy remains is eroding into their cellars. So the King's minister has hired on an engineer from Normandy to put together a crew that will dig up and relocate the corpses to the Catacombs, then destroy the cemetery and the church.
This is a sumptuous and evocative story of late 18th century Paris. It is as if Andrew Miller himself just came back from 1785 and is eagerly regaling us with all that he saw. We are jostled by the crowds in the streets and the rough labourers in the cemetery, we smell the fetid air, we feel the grit beneath our feet and between our fingers, we peer into the dim candle-lit shadows of hovels, church recesses, and charnel houses.

Eeeeww factoid: Scientific American provided a fascinating article on the history of this cemetery. The cemetery was so crowded that not enough oxygen was available for decomposition, so mounds of fat resulted. This human fat was turned into soaps and candles.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a...

[Leo · Rating 1 out of 5]

The blurb sounded like a story that would stand out story wise but unfortunately the audiobook just went by without much impact. Perhaps the story goes better if read physical but for now it's a disappointed read

[JimZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not one of those who thought this book should have garnered an award along with a butt-load of money to boot!

From The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/201... ), January 24, 2012:
• A vividly told story of life in pre-revolutionary Paris on Tuesday won the 2011 Costa book award in what turned out to be a bitterly fought two-way tussle between fact and fiction.
Andrew Miller was given one of the UK's most prestigious literary prizes – and a £30,000 cheque – at a ceremony in London for his sixth novel, Pure.
The chairman of the judges, Geordie Greig, said "there really was a fierce debate" during the 90-minute judging discussion. "There was quite bitter dissent and argument to find the winner. The debate was prolonged with passionate views over two books." The books were Pure and Now All Roads Lead to France, Matthew Hollis's gripping and moving biography of the war poet Edward Thomas.

This is the second time I have read this book...first time was in 2011.

There were some good parts, and reading it certainly made me grateful that somebody invented the flush toilet and waste disposal/sewage systems, and streets and sidewalks free of horse poop. But really not a whole lot happened in this novel that justified 355 pages. An engineer is put in charge of removing bones from a church-associated cemetery and eventually tearing down the church, too. That’s it.

But again, I am an outlier but this world needs outliers (I am trying to justify my rating in face of the book winning an award and many of my GR friends liking the book 😬 😐 😑).

Reviews:
• https://historicalnovelsociety.org/re...
• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/book...
• http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/P...

[Siobhan · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment! Miller could have done so much more with this concept (the destruction of Les Innocents in Paris). Unfortunately, the novel is too short; atrocious under development of character, a lack of any cultivated plot and a dismal amount of the ins and outs of the mechanics of such a project (demolition of a church, exhumation of thousands of corpses etc) left me thinking there really wasn't much depth to the novel.

There is much potential in this novel, Miller's use of a wide range of characters, from various walks of life, could have allowed him to open up some really interesting narratives. This opportunity was missed however. The most interesting character is the eccentric Armand, who seems to be surplus to the actual job being done, making me think he was added to the novel later in order to make the novel more interesting. If it wasn't for Armand, there would be no humour at all. For Miller, Armand also ticks the French Revolution box, but that's one of the many problems - it reads like a box ticking exercise, rather than a convincing political backdrop. Jeanette, the sexton's daughter, shows promise in the opening chapters but seems to fall flat on her unreal face as Miller reduces her to a silly, romantic, insubstantial little girl as she 'falls for' Barratte. As for our l'ingenieur himself, he's as uninteresting as a wet lettuce on a hot day.

There are a few ridiculous 'events' which seem to come from nowhere, but I wouldn't say I wasted my time reading 'Pure'. It was an interesting concept and although the writing style seems forced, it did spark my own imagination.

In conclusion, I gave a 'coffee book' novel a chance and found it wanting. In true book snobbery style - I'm returning to my Man Booker Prize novels to re engage my brain.

[lucky little cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could not put this book down. It made me ignore family members without even meaning to. Way more than usual, even. :D


What's a little danse macabre between friends?

Pure focuses on Jean-Baptiste, a fledgling late-18th-century engineer whose first commission is an impossible one: to efficiently empty the oldest cemetery in Paris and demolish the cemetery's cathedral. Author Andrew Miller includes something for everyone in this good-natured tale. Engineer Jean-Baptiste is a country mouse who gets schooled first thing by a new fast-talking city frenemy. The engineer is also resented by the faubourg residents who want to keep their landmark, even as its stink pervades every aspect of their lives. How will he prevail?



There are colorful characters and a wealth of historical details that feel fresh. There's also romance on multiple fronts, and a bit of political intrigue (though maybe not enough to satisfy actual French history fans). There weren't too many engineering details, but the ones included warmed my nerdy soul.

keywords: yes, we all know Armand's a virtuoso with his organ; how to get out of Versailles without a guide; pistachio satin just doesn't feel very manly; we're not throwing all these lovely roof leads away are we? who knew the sextant knew so much about corpses; I'd like her even better if she weren't only fourteen

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The blurb on the back was something of a mis-sell. I was expecting something darkly Gothic in the vein of Lewis's The Monk and though the events listed rape, suicide, murder do happen they are almost incidental, hardly more than related as an event that happened than described. By the end of the book I had no insight as to what had driven the perpetrators to commit these acts.
The story tells of an interesting part of French history set just before the revolution and telling of the removal of the dead from the cemeteries to be reinterred in catacombs underneath Paris as part of a project to clean the air of the stench of decay.
With the exception of the church organist, Armand, I found all the characters somewhat flat and lacking explanation of their intentions and actions and so I was left with a book which is just a series of unfortunate events.

[Pippa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had such high hopes for this book having read the reviews, seen the press coverage and of course the fact that it won the Costa book of year award. Unfortunately I was left sorely dissapointed. The novel just never seemed to progress or have any real spark about it. I finished the book feeling that the plot was highly simplistic and the events that punctuated the story never developed. The charecters were flat and I kept reading waiting for something to happen and for the story to get going; which when nearing the end came to the conclusion that this was infact it. It promised to be great historical fiction and I hate to say it but Philippa Gregory writes with far more character depth, intrigue and is a genuine page turner. 'Pure' on the otherhand left me underwhelmed and unsure what all of the fuss was about.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was the subject matter that attracted me to this book, as it seemed so unusual, based on an actual event, the clearing of Les Innocents graveyard in Paris which had become what we would refer to nowadays as a health hazard.
This gruesome task is undertaken by a young engineer who is commissioned to complete the task in a year.
What follows is the dark but compelling story of how this work was done, and it's effects on those involved.

There are many unusual and interesting characters, suicide, rape, insanity, a love affair, ladies of the night.....and lots and lots of bones!

I loved this book, the writing was superb, and I felt the author perfectly captured both the atmosphere of Paris, and the menace of the approaching revolution.

[Zanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ļoti solīds vēsturiskais romāns, kas lasās viegli un raiti.
Ļoti izteikti par tā laika un vietas smaržām (pareizāk gan smakām) un garšām.
Par Normandijas iedzimtā ļoti reālistiskas dzīves pārbaudījumiem Parīzē.

[Orsolya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though the number of historical fiction books rendering the time of the French Revolution appears endless; Andrew Miller takes a different approach in “Pure”. Following Jean-Baptiste Baratte, an engineer contracted to “get rid of” Les Innocents (a cemetery), the novel is rich with symbolism not necessarily found in all Revolutionary novels.

As one can probably deduce from the mere summary above; “Pure” is not a typical historical fiction narrative. Rather, Miller’s novel is a canopy of symbolism, metaphors, and similes presented in a literary-novel style. Encompassing views on the French Revolution and life in general; “Pure” moves smoothly within the plot but also contains deeper implications which provoke modern thought. Miller doesn’t overly emphasize these intelligent conversation precursors and instead, he is subtle which allows the average mass audience to be entertained (if not searching for controversial thought).

Even aside from the philosophical aspect, “Pure” has a steady pace and strong enough plot line to carry the work. The character of Baratte doesn’t follow the standard character arc and yet the reader will feel that Baratte is familiar. This is due to the combination of his personality shining through his actions plus Miller’s use of occasionally telling the story from the points of view of other characters which makes Baratte a surprisingly well-rounded character.

“Pure” contains minimal dialogue and is more of a character-study driven piece. However, this doesn’t slow the novel and Miller’s prose and eloquent (yet with a proper ratio of informal additives) writing style is perfect, cohesive, and smooth.

The less philosophical and more story-lined portions of “Pure” are both believable and realistic, carrying the reader away and resulting in one “living” the story along with Baratte. At the same time, the reader becomes more and more accustomed to Miller’s symbolism, deeper meanings, and the representations of various governmental and political ways of life applied to both the French Revolution and today. “Pure” can almost be compared to a combination of Thomas More’s “Utopia” with some elements of Orwell’s “1984”, but with a unique feel of its own.

Approximately three-quarters though, “Pure” undergoes drastic and dramatic events. These are unexpected and provide suspense, but also are slightly disconnected from the simplistic depth of the story, previous. Regardless, even with the small discord; each event still has rhyme, reason, and a moral and philosophical depth which encourages interpretation to the theme. This portion of the novel also features short chapters and a quickened pace. Although some readers may have an issue with this, “Pure” doesn’t feel rushed but on the contrary, emotions are heightened and the effect is poetic in essence.

The conclusion of “Pure” rounds out the novel, reverts to the beginning, answers questions, and explores social class structures in terms of the symbolism throughout. This ending is solid and well-matched with the overall feel and plot.

“Pure” is a strong, multilevel, compelling, and is a well-written work from Andrew Miller. “Pure” certainly encourages curiosity in Miller’s other pieces and is precisely the type of novel for book clubs or student discussions. “Pure” is much recommended for those readers seeking intellectual-literary reading.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Les Innocents church and the graveyard. Paris 1785, just before the Revolution, and Jean-Baptiste is given the unenviable task of emptying the graves of Les Innocents and taking the church apart. It’s a fantastic book that really captures the atmosphere of Paris extremely well. The story is great, if somewhat unsavoury at times, but what really fascinated me was the metaphors in the book... I’m sure the book could be studied in depth. I read this as a book club read and someone said it reminded her of Dickens, and I knew exactly what she meant.

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a passage in Pure that sums up the sly, grim beauty and horror of this extraordinary novel. It is a rather intimate scene where our Great Engineer -- tasked with removing the stain of the les Innocents cemetery, which is blotting the landscape of a Paris neighbourhood -- is faced with the shortcomings of the human body itself:

He gets his breeches down (loses a button in his haste) and lets the muck fly out of him, hears it slap the surface of the muck already in the hole. A pause: the body seems to be listening to itself; then another burst, almost burning him as it passes. He clings to the pole, his forehead against the planed wood, panting, waiting for the next convulsion. They will name squares after us, said Lecouer that morning in Valenciennes, the snow brushing the window. The men who purified Paris!

Setting a novel in pre-Revolutionary Paris is tricky, as it is a balancing act not to seem to be too didactic or moralising. Miller avoids such obvious pitfalls by looking into the cracks, the interstices: there are such wonderful setpieces as when the Great Engineer goes to buy a new suit to label himself as a man of the future, and the running gag when his non de plume is used as the name of a radical painting seditious slogans around Paris.

Surprisingly, amidst the dirt, death, bones, shit, stench and blood, this is a love story of aching tenderness (though there is rape and brutality as well). It is a horror novel, too, with such a high quotient of existential dread one feels morally soiled reading this. It is a thriller, and a comedy of manners. That Miller manages to pack so much into what is a relatively slim novel, without it seeming contrived or inadequate, is masterful.

... And then there is that truly jaw-dropping ending of such anguish and horror that the final image will stay with me for days (I have just finished reading this).

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but was left a little unsatisfied. I love the way Miller writes, and this is a soft touch on the pre-revolutionary Paris, only tangentially touching on the politics - I wanted it to be more grisly and gruesome, considering Baratte is tasked with moving the contents of the cemetery of les Innocents, which at the time was overflowing into people's cellars. I wanted more politics and more of an insight into the perspectives at Versailles and those of the common people. I wanted more on Beche, more on Guillotin (who would later have that most famous killing device named after him), more on the myths surrounding the cemetery. I did enjoy it, though, it opened up a world, that I wanted more of.

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

2011 Costa Book of the Year. Andrew Miller's critically acclaimed tale set in a pre-revolutionary France where an engineer is tasked with removing a cemetery and its church in the middle of a heavily populated part of Paris The book tells the story of how this massive project is undertaken and how it affects the neighbourhood, the workers and the engineer himself. 6 out of 12.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book with a most unusual historical premise. The year is 1785. Protagonist Jean-Baptiste Baratte, an engineer from the Normandy region in France, is hired by the King’s administration to manage the removal of a cemetery, Les Innocents (a real place), and associated church. It is located in the Les Halles district of Paris. The unsanitary conditions have become intolerable. Partially decomposed bodies, many buried in common pits, have given rise to an appalling smell and tainted soil. Jean-Baptiste arrives in Paris and lodges with a local family near the cemetery. He gets in touch with a colleague to use a team of miners to perform the excavation. Once demolition begins, a number of doctors and other professionals are needed, including Dr. Guillotin. During the process a number of unfortunate events will occur, along with a few unexpected surprises.

The storyline follows Jean-Baptiste and the task he is assigned. His character is significantly developed. He is initially somewhat naïve, but also responsible and kind. His job is not an easy one (at risk of understatement!) He must employ creative means to accomplish the job. He will be transformed, and his idealism severely tested. This book is a fictional account of a real historic event. The writing is richly descriptive, providing a sense of time and place. There are hints at the French Revolution (which will arrive in a few years) and heavy symbolism regarding purification. I have no idea how this book got on my list to read, but I am glad it did. It is fascinating in a macabre way. I need to check out more of Andrew Miller’s catalogue.

[Vasco Simões · Rating 2 out of 5]

Diz na capa "Se gostou de O Perfume não perca esta obra" e não perdi...mas daí a gostar vai um mundo. O pretexto de transladar um cemitério do centro de Paris em vésperas da Revolução Francesa parece-me um pretexto de romance muito interessante mas fala-se muito pouco sobre o tema central. Tudo à volta parece demasiado artificial. O cemitério parece apenas o pretexto e na verdade podia ser outra coisa qualquer. As personagens e a trama já estava toda montada. O cemitério pouco pinta e creio mesmo que era a parte mais interessante. Enfim...comparar O Perfume com isto...
PS - O bêbado chamado Merda...essa matou-me!

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Miller’s new novel stinks.

What do you expect? It’s full of thousands upon thousands of rotting bodies. No zombies — just good old-fashioned corpses crammed into a Parisian cemetery for more than 500 years.

The general background of “Pure” is true: The Church of the Saints Innocents was founded in the Middle Ages and eventually became the largest cemetery in Paris. You think you have storage problems? One early-15th-century plague added 50,000 bodies in a few weeks. Giant pits held more than 1,000 bodies apiece until the ground was so packed that older corpses were dug up and stored to make room for new ones. Nearby buildings collapsed under the pressure. (Purell! Purell!) By the mid-18th century, the atmosphere grew toxic: Merchants complained that their wine quickly turned to vinegar and their meat rotted, pedestrians fainted and sickened. But the Mother Church was making a fortune from burial fees.

Into this pungent historical setting wafts Miller with a grave story about a man charged with emptying the cemetery and tearing down the church. It’s Ken Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth” in reverse. Miller’s hero, Jean-Baptiste Baratte, is a work of fiction, but the 1785 country Miller describes is redolent of real life. I’m reminded of “The Great Stink,” Clare Clark’s lurid novel about the creation of the London sewer system in the mid-19th century, but Miller is a more understated writer and, besides, such comparisons are odorous.

We first meet 28-year-old Jean-Baptiste in the labyrinthine mirrored halls of Versailles, where he receives an assignment that must be “handled with the necessary flair, the necessary discretion”: The crown has finally ordered that the cemetery be removed. For a young engineer from Normandy, this is a chance to make his name, but powerful forces — temporal and spiritual — are determined to resist him. People don’t like you fiddling with their bones or their cash cows. “It will require a man unafraid of a little unpleasantness,” the commissioner warns him. “The place is to be made sweet again. Use fire, use brimstone. Use whatever you need to get rid of it.” What exactly “it” is becomes the central problem of the novel.

Jean-Baptiste is an endearing fellow, serious and earnest, torn between his ambitions and his good nature. He’s so committed to rational self-improvement that every night in bed he recites a little godless affirmation about his devotion to reason. He prides himself “on possessing a trained and shadowless mind,” but just wait till the miasma of the graveyard begins to work on him. Not exactly a country bumpkin, he’s still dazzled by Paris. The early scenes of him stumbling around the city — trying to buy the right suit, trying to hold his liquor — are delightful.

He’s eager to begin dismantling the cemetery, but the author takes his time. The ghoulish engineering challenge can wait while Jean-Baptiste settles into the odd little collection of people who populate this story. That emphasis on character and place will determine who relishes this elegant novel and who finds its pace a little too sedate. But the scenes in the crowded market, the gated churchyard or the luxurious theater offer something close to time travel. And all of Jean-Baptiste’s a la mode friends are wonderfully drawn, from the doomed church’s organist “playing Bach to bats,” to kindly Dr. Guillotin, who’s studying the decomposition of bodies (his association with the National Razor is just a few tumultuous years away). There’s also a tasty bit of domestic comedy in the house where Jean-Baptiste rents a bedroom. He’s a parfait gentleman, but vapors from the churchyard have gotten to them all. The maid can’t resist him, and the nervous daughter doesn’t — protegez-vous!

Before the “delicate and gross” work of deconstruction gets underway in the “notorious boneyard,” Jean-Baptiste thinks it’ll be a matter of “so many men, so many hours. A calculation. An equation. Voila!” Very soon, though, he confronts problems that mathematics and physics can’t address. Authority over others is an awkward mantle for a young man devoted to utopian ideals. His workers strike him not as comrades but as “mysterious as eels.” And for all his fervor to welcome in the modern world, he begins to realize just what’s being thrown out along with those old bones. Not everything about the past is worth abandoning.

As his men begin digging and emptying graves more than 30 yards deep, the danger increases — from collapsing walls to poisonous gas. Even more troubling are the threats no one anticipates: shocks that redraw the plan and reorder one’s mind. Graffiti in the city foretells a violent disinterment on the horizon. The name les Innocents grows more and more ironic. How can anyone stay pure in such an atmosphere?

Miller is still relatively unknown in the United States (he’s not the Red Sox pitcher), but his work has been celebrated in Britain for the past 15 years. “Ingenious Pain” won the IMPAC Award in 1999; “Oxygen” was shortlisted for the Booker and the Whitbread; “Pure” was the Costa Book of the Year. I hope this handsome paperback edition from Europa helps increase his presence here. This smart reimagining of the groundwork just before France burst into flames is something to savor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished the audiobook version, narrated by Jonathan Aris, two days ago. I had to in fact listen to the ending three times; the details were confusing - which kind of annoyed me! I do think I understand the message that was being imparted by the final scene. Anyway, what I most enjoyed about this book was its imagery. You feel as though you are in Paris. The Parisians are acting like Parisians. You perceive the streets, the sounds and sights and smells. Well, not really the smells, because the stench of Paris in 1785 is not the way it smells today. The area around the "Cemetery of Les Innocents", given its mass graves and the decomposing bodies, had not the fragrance of a floral garden! All the bones and bodies were to be excavated and moved elsewhere! This is a fictional story about this project.

For those "nutters" like me who want to know the historical details, here are the facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_I...

So what I really liked about this book was being in Paris again, but if you haven't been in Paris you maybe will not feel yourself there again.... that is a possibility. Maybe this is a book for those of us who do know Paris and want to make a trip back!

This book not only depicts the physical aspects of Paris in the 1780s but also its "philosophical trends" - Voltaire and Descartes and the Age of the Enlightenment, Le Siècle des Lumières. The message of the book is related to whether its main character, Jean Baptiste Barrat, does or does not become a modern man, in the sense of the new philosophy of the time. So the book is not only about the cemetery but also about ordinary people living in the time of the Enlightenment.

Maybe the events are a bit unbelievable, but I don't read a book for its plot. I prefer character studies and depictions of a time and place. Nevertheless, three stars is my rating. I enjoyed myself while I was there, engulfed in Paris of those years, but what exactly did I get from my reading? I felt the author was trying to leave a message with the confusing ending. That I could have done without. It's a bit trite. I believe Miller wants it said that Barrat had grown and was a wiser man even if the retreat looked as though he was following the same path. Why was he changed? Through his own choices and actions or through a medical event that happened to him, nothing he did himself? To understand what I am saying here you have to read the book!

The narrator does know French; it was a relief to hear French spoken with correct pronunciation.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure. What a not so sweet smelling little charmer you are. A real treasure that I am pleased to have finally read after a couple years of some less than graceful evasive manoeuvres. It has played a good game this Pure. Putting itself under my nose at every turn. Gawping at me from the shelf at my library as I reach for a different book. On a friends currently reading pile. In recommended reading lists. Flashing your fine cover in blue or in green. You know I love that cover. Have told you over and over. It has always been one of my favourites. A favourite of all time.
You are everywhere, Pure by Andrew Miller, everywhere I look. So, when I saw you discarded upon the recently returned shelf at my local library, I knew I could not resist you any longer. I succumbed, overcoming my apprehension towards your macabre context, and you yielded, giving up a fortune in charms.

Pure. Was probably not the book I expected it to be. For the last few years I have been raving about that exquisitely beautiful cover. Telling people it was a favourite of all time. And yet I had not read it. Had avoided it. Been evasive when people had tried to push it on me.
Why then did I resist for so long? Well, it had more than a little to do with the nature of the context. The cemetery of les Innocents. Its sides heaving with rotting bodies. The engineer, Jean-Baptiste. Commissioned to clear the over burden of death from les Innocents and transform it into a market place. Does not sound very pleasant does it?
I always knew I would get to Pure eventually. As soon as I could convince my senses that the story within, the story of removing rotting bodies buried one atop the other for hundreds of years, would not offend them. When that time came and I felt my resolve was strong, I went for it. And enjoyed every second.

Yes, the context is gruesome on occasion and yes, the descriptions of the death scent clinging to everything that surrounded les Innocents – clothes, people, food – will perhaps put you off your supper, but it really isn't so bad. Not as bad as I thought it would be. And if you can overcome it there is a story of beauty laying beneath that death mask. A treasure trove of barely restrained sexuality, of books and literature, of relationships and the human mind.

I don't know how this author writes his other books, but I believe that Andrew Miller wrote Pure in a perpetually aroused state. I do not know if others will pick up on this too. Maybe it was just me. But sexual innuendo was everywhere in this story. Not busting at your seams sexuality, but a subtle innuendo. Like a soft breath across your face. Like a length of silk falling from a bed post. The warm liquid feel of sex had its fingers in every corner. From the obvious Heloise the prostitute, to the excitement of the Doctors over the cadavers of two women, to the moments Jean-Baptiste found himself alone with his hardness, to the girl with her peep hole. It filled the pages. Tainted the words.

And books. If you are a bibliophile then you will love the feel of being in a book surrounded by characters who love books too. Through reading, through education. Titles of books I would never have heard of. Obscure French titles to the more well known such as Robinson Crusoe. I am infatuated with the way Andrew Miller blended the two wonders of sex and books into a story about the decommissioning of a putrid cemetery.

I was seduced, repulsed and hypnotised.

[Guy Portman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paris’s oldest cemetery, Les Innocents, is overflowing, the city’s deceased having been piled in there for years, resulting in the surrounding area having been permanently permeated by a fetid aroma. The site is a growing concern to the authorities and a potential hazard to the health of the local population.

The prospect of salvation comes with the arrival of a young, energetic, provincial engineer by the name of Jean-Baptiste Baratte, commissioned by the king to clear the cemetery. The story follows in intricate detail Jean-Baptiste’s preparations for the ensuing task, including moving into a residence close to the cemetery and employing a team of miners from Valenciennes for the proposed work. Eventually the clearing of Les Innocents commences with Jean-Baptiste supervising the disinterring of the burial plots. Subplots include an assault on the protagonist by his landlady’s daughter Ziguette, using his own brass ruler for the purpose, in addition to an unexpected romance with a prostitute named Heloise.

The winner of the prestigious Costa Prize in 2011, Pure has been praised for the diligent research of its author and what has been claimed to be the atmospheric ambience of its writing, an integral element of any successful historical novel. However, despite Miller’s purported efforts to create the setting of eighteenth-century Paris, scant effort has been made to evoke the sense of tension in a country on the brink of revolution.

Those readers anticipating that Pure’s subject matter will reveal a tale of the sinister and macabre may well find themselves disappointed by a detailed and mundane content matter, interspersed with fanciful events, for the most part bereft of context. The lack of intrigue is palpable, the characters un-engaging, the incessant details tedious and uninspiring. Devoid of suspense and a meaningful plot, the book’s culmination left this reader concluding Pure has a captivating premise, but a tepid reality.

[Maya Panika · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliantly written fiction, set against the removal of Les Innocents cemetery in Paris in the years immediately preceding the French Revolution.

When the story begins, Jean-Baptiste Baratte is a rather staid young man. Freshly arrived from his Normandy home and ambitious to advance his engineering career, he is given the job of clearing Les Innocents cemetery, a place literally over-flowing with the dead, fouling the food, tainting the breath of those who share its air.

It's a surprisingly compelling story and the writing is startlingly good; accidental death, attempted murder, a suicide, arson and rape pepper Baratte's journey of self-discovery, as the first inklings of the coming revolution simmer in the city, occasionally bursting on to the page in the form of graffiti and the pronouncements of the mercurial Armand, the church organist.

The novel is peppered with a progression of remarkable characters: his sober landlords, the Monnets, his old friend and comrade Lecoeur, who brings capable Belgian miners to do the work of digging out the bones, the gentle Jeanne, who has lived all her life with the dead, the mad priest Colbert, the strange, deranged Ziguette, the wise Heloise, the kindly, level-headed Doctor Guillotine and the sinister Lafosse - each one, so wonderfully drawn, contributes to making this story so absorbing and so real.

This was the first book I've read by Andrew Miller but I'll certainly be reading more in the future. Once begun, Pure was very hard to put down and certainly the best book I've read so far this year.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I certainly appreciated the exquisite writing; every word and image was chosen with care and perfection, like a necklace of perfect pearls, with each of the incidents and characters representing a pearl on that necklace. I observed this through the whole novel, but by somewhere in Part III everything began to fall apart. It felt like the author had made his point and was just filling in events, to rush to a finish. The book ended in a mirror image of its beginning. The book made me uneasy and the mood throughout was melancholy. I felt the story was an allegory, dripping with metaphors. It called to mind The Plague of Albert Camus with its use of allegory. This novel was set in pre-Revolutionary France, as opposed to French-occupied Oran, Algeria.

The surface story concerns a young idealistic engineer tasked with digging up and moving contents of a cemetery and demolishing the nearby church--to "purify" the land. The novel traces his efforts and his own existential crisis. Through his experiences and dealings with the people he meets, he becomes a more realistic individual, forsaking his previous idealism.

I took the whole story as an allegory: either of pre-Revolutionary Paris--ancien regime as opposed to 'the party of the future'--which I interpreted to mean 'liberté, egalité, fraternité' and Revolutionary ideals. Or, I thought it might mean man's human condition, sin or failings. Different ones were revealed in different symbols. Names were often symbolic, e.g., Jean-Baptiste [John the Baptist=water=purity] Barratte=Churn=naive country boy; the minister's assistant he dealt with: Lafosse=the pit=because pits were dug at the cemetery. Color were symbols also: brown, representing the old ways; green, representing new ways. Flowers that began to sprout when the cemetery and church were cleared, to me, indicated optimism, in spite of bad times. The use of the present tense to forward the story gave it immediacy and effectively rendered it more vivid.

Recommended for readers of novels of ideas.

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Paris before the start of the French Revolution, the description made the scenes come to life from page 1. Jean-Baptiste Baratte, an engineer, is set the task to clean a Parisian town reeking with death. Nearby towns have been complaining of the stench; a cemetery, les Innocents, has 50 000 corpses dumped from a plague. Not an easy job but one he accepts from a minister of the King.
I left this book to the end expecting to struggle with it, this is my second attempt the first time (years ago) I didn’t get far. This time I was enthralled by Barrete’s inner battle to not be pulled to the darker side. This battle is almost subdued (and easy to miss) but to me it spoke loudly as it was a tense read and I was hooked to the end wondering what would happen.

I was also delighted by the coincidence of touching on the subject of Enlightenment, one I would have missed if I had not started to look into Romanticism that led me to articles that I skimmed gleaning enough to recognise the deeper textures of the ritual Barrette goes through every night before he falls asleep.

… He shuts his eyes – darkness either side! – and after a pause begins to speak quietly not a prayer but a catechism of selfhood.
“Who are you? I am Jean Baptiste Barrette. Where are you from? From Belleme in Normandy. What are you? An engineer, trained at the Ecole des Ponts. What do you believe in? In the power of reason … ”

Kindle edition, page 29

Without this vague understanding it would have been easy for me to think not much really happened instead of being submerged in the subtle conflict. I zipped through this faster than I thought I would. The ending, kind of open I thought just fitted the tone of this novel perfectly.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miller does an excellent job of bringing pre-revolution Paris to life. Jean-Baptiste Baratte is tasked with digging up and disposing of the bodies in a Parisian churchyard which is so full, the air around it is poisoned and the dead are bursting into the cellars of the surrounding houses. Along the way we meet many people including Baratte's friends, landlords, and lover. The book is crammed full of incident, metaphor and symbolism and bustles along like the overfull streets, the only duff note coming when one of Baratte's friends does something which seems so out of character it is as though Miller included it because he felt the book needed a kick at that point. But I don't mean to be unkind - I really enjoyed it, especially how the ending echoed the beginning.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy books like this one, ones that focus not on shoving obstacles and enemies into the path of the plot, but instead work to give the main character friendship, fortune, and even love despite their misfortunes. There's just something satisfying in seeing characters work effectively with one another, together dealing with all that life throws at them. In other words, I'm a fan of authors who don't make all their characters insufferable prats just because they can. It's easy to get weary of the antagonism.
Living close to a large cemetery myself, I have to appreciate how far we've come in dealing with our buried dead. The idea of that pervasive malaise, in the air, in the food, in the people. It's disgustingly frightening on a base level, a feeling only matched by the thought of living near a radioactive zone. If Ziguette's antics weren't related to that decaying cesspool, I'll eat my hat.
Going back to the characters actually being decent with one another, I was surprised by how many of them were competent souls. Definitely led to less drama. There wasn't any cringing at misplaced trust or outdated medicinal techniques, or even lover's spats. It was instead borderline peaceful, save for a few incidents; rape, attempted murder, suicide, arson, and all that jazz. Despite all these, the book went along at an enjoyably sedate pace, as it made up its lack of action with more than enough descriptive power. I'll take realistic imagery that I can fully immerse myself in over overly complex power plays any day.