Book Review: "Pure" by Andrew Miller

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

- Pure by Andrew Miller

If anyone knows me, they know that I will pretty much do this thing every single week: I will choose a book by an author I have never heard of and read it regardless of whether I am in my comfort zone. There is something really nice about going out of your way to discover a new author and, sometimes you might be disappointed. Other times though, you may have found yourself a brand new addition to your literary personality. The book in question here is the Winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award for 2011, Pure by Andrew Miller.

There are some advantages and some disadvantages that I would like to talk about here. My general consensus though is that this book may read well, but ultimately seems to go nowhere. It paints a pretty picture but without some substance behind it, all it seems to be is a mess of half-cocked metaphors waiting to be explored. As Roger Ebert once stated about the film The Usual Suspects, (and forgive me for some paraphrasing) 'as much as I do understand...I do not care.'

The first advantage is the writing. The book is filled with this lovely atmospheric description and so much so that the reader can almost taste 1700s Paris. It is a special skill to be able to write such atmospheres. We have not only the cemetery but the church, the house of the people the main character is staying with and constant musings about life, death and existence interwoven into the picture. The senses all seem to come alive with these descriptions as does the time and place. I will say that if you are relying solely on descriptions then this is a good read for you.

Be that as it may, the main point of the book gets lost between some shoddily written dialogue (with scenes of dialogue that are simply too long) alongside some unexplored metaphors. I think that the intention was to leave the reader thinking about the metaphors, but with so much to take in otherwise, it proves to just be annoying. The reader does not want a character that speaks in swings and roundabouts when they are in awe of such an atmosphere. This is one of the book's faults.

Besides this, a great advantage is the fact that our main character is essentially flawed as a human being. He tries to be good, but falls back on to being human over and over again. This starts with his willingness to commit to the cemetery but for the wrong reasons. He should want to do it for himself whereas, he does it for his own family name. If we watch carefully, these weird decisions of intention lead him down a strange and unnerving path which he does not realise until it is seemingly too late to do anything about it.

Unfortunately, this is all let down by the ending which is written in a half-explored way and does not answer a lot of questions. I think this book would have been better if it were leaning less on to its descriptions of Paris because I for one, felt a real lack of story as the book progressed. I felt like I was being thrown between minor unexplored characters and the main story. This is a huge fault and cannot be forgiven as it really makes immersing yourself int he book difficult.

All in all, I found this to be an average read. It lacks continuity but makes up for it in well-written descriptions. I think if the writer simplified the storyline completely then the descriptions would have shone more rather than eventually getting in the way of understanding a convoluted narrative which ultimately, does not go anywhere at all. I did understand the style the writer was trying to imitate - to make us immersed in the time and place, but I don't think it worked very well as it was inconsistent and unbalanced.