Pure
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.
3.9 out of 5 based on 10 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Pages |
352 |
| RRP |
£17.99 |
| Date of Publication |
June 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-1444724257 |
| Publisher |
Sceptre |
| |
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.
ONE MORNING LIKE A BIRD by Andrew Miller
Reviews
The Daily Telegraph
Holly Kyte
"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."
16/06/2011
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The Daily Express
Vanessa Berridge
"He has written a book which is very atmospheric, if not to say positively creepy at times. 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."
17/06/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
Freya Johnston
"This is a tale about “the beauty and mystery of what is most ordinary”, whether those ordinary things are prized by the hero or not. Miller lingers up close on details: sour breath, decaying objects, pretty clothes, flames, smells, eyelashes. He is a close observer of cats. He is also alive to the dramatic possibilities offered by late-18th-century Paris, a fetid and intoxicating city on the brink of revolution."
20/06/2011
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The Financial Times
Suzi Feay
"Pre-revolutionary Paris is evoked in pungent detail, from its fragrant bread and reeking piss-pots to the texture of clothing, the grimness of medical procedure and the myriad colours of excavated bone. By concentrating on the bit players and byways of history, Miller conjures up an eerily tangible vanished world."
10/06/2011
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The Independent
James Urquhart
"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. This concern has driven most of Miller's protagonists ... Miller populates Baratte's quest for equanimity with these lush and tart characters, seductively fleshed out, who collectively help to deliver the bittersweet resolution of Baratte's professional and personal travails."
03/06/2011
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The Literary Review
Jonathan Beckman
"Miller avoids the easy, banal and historically inacurate division of ancien régime France into philosophically enlightened liberals and reactionary clergy and government ... striking and intelligent"
01/06/2011
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The Daily Mail
Clare Colvin
"Miller evokes the underside of Parisian society with assured, vivid detail so that images remain in your mind long after you reach the last page. This is historical fiction with imaginative style."
03/06/2011
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Times Literary Supplement
Adam O’Riordan
"Andrew Miller employs his considerable élan 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."
15/07/2011
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The Sunday Times
David Grylls
"However, just as the Romantic movement emerged during this period, the process of digging ever deeper uncovers wonders as well as horrors. Baratte falls in love and reassesses his values; he acknowledges that no human impulse is “pure”. All this thematic and cultural patterning can occasionally be overschematic. Taken as a whole, though, the book pulls off an ambitious project: to evoke a complex historical period through a tissue of deftly selected details."
19/06/2011
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The Observer
Leo Robson
"It is disappointing, given the vitality of the novel's setting and set-up, that Miller fails to achieve corresponding dynamism in the development of plot and character. The destruction of Les Innocents consumes the novel, from first line to last, but the consequences of the project are never made to matter to the reader as much as they matter to the engineer; the dark results are not dark enough."
17/07/2011
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