Opis

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.

Reviews

'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 . . . Miller's newly minted sentences are arresting, often unsettling and always thought-provoking. 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, Telegraph

'One of the most brilliant aspects of Miller's writing is his ability to question unobtrusively, through style alone, sentimentality about both life under the Bourbons and the creative destruction of revolution . . . he has an instinctive knack for casting bright similes, never overextended, that ripple suggestively . . . 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 . . . pre-revolutionary Paris is evoked in pungent detail . . . By concentrating on the bit players and byways of history, Miller conjures up an eerily tangible vanished world.' Suzi Feay, Financial Times

'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

'It is an audacious novelist who can so knowingly prefigure the symbolism at the heart of his own work without threatening the success of the entire enterprise. It is fortunate, then, that Miller is a writer of subtlety and skill...Unlike many parables, however, PURE is neither laboured nor leaden. 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

'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

'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.'Sunday Times, Culture

'almost dreamlike, a realistic fantasy, a violent fairytale for adults' Brian Lynch, Irish Times

Preberite si več v slovenščini...

Literarna nagrada za "moraliteto o predrevolucionarni Franciji"

Britansko literarno nagrado costa je letos osvojil Andrew Miller s Pure, romanom o predrevolucionarni Franciji, ki je v dnevih pred podelitvijo razklal žirijo.

Roman Pure, katerega zgodba je umeščena v zanemarjeno pariško pokopališče v letih pred francosko revolucijo, je žirija pohvalila kot "živ prikaz" nekega obdobja. Kljub temu je bila zmaga 51-letnega Millerja za številne presenečenje, saj je v britanskih literarnih krogih za favorita veljal Matthew Hollis oz. njegova biografija pesnika Edwarda Thomasa.

Pure je zgodba o mladem inženirju, ki v Pariz pripotuje s kraljevim naročilom, naj poruši starodavno pokopališče, na katerem se gnetejo grobovi. Miller sicer ne more obljubiti, da bo tudi njegov naslednji roman zgodovinski; čisto mogoče, da bo sledil "nenavadnim potem njegovih obsesij". "Pisanje je nekakšno organizirano sanjarjenje. In tako sedimo v sobah, si izmišljamo čudne kraje in čudne ljudi ter jih spravimo v tek."

Predsednik žirije (in urednik London Evening Standarda) Geordie Greig je razril, da je bila žirija pri izbiri nagrajenca zelo razklana, obenem pa zmagovalni roman opisal kot "moraliteto, ki očara s svojo življenjsko upodobitvijo predrevolucionarne Francije". V uri in pol, preden so žiranti sklenili soglasje, je predvsem okoli dveh knjig bojda potekala "goreča debata"; nekateri so namreč navijali za "neverjetno subtilno briljantno" biografijo Now All Roads Lead To France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas izpod peresa Matthewa Hollisa. V ožjem izboru so bili še romaneskni prvenec Christie Watson (Tiny Sunbirds Far Away), pesniška zbirka Carol Ann Duffy (The Bees) in delo za otroke Moire Young (Blood Red Road). Izbiranje med med seboj tako različnimi deli je po Greigovih besedah "bolj kot primerjanju hrušk in jabolk podobno primerjanju banan in piščančjega karija", kar po njegovem mnenju nalogi daje pridih nemogočega.

Ampak to ga navsezadnje najbrž ni moglo presenetiti, saj je tako osnovno izhodišče nagrade costa: priznanja za literate Velike Britanije in Irske v posameznih kategorijah - roman, romaneskni prvenec, poezija, biografija in otroška knjiga - so vredne po 5.000 funtov, njihovi dobitniki pa se potegujejo za glavno nagrado za najboljšo knjigo, vredno 35 tisoč funtov. Nagrade so aktualno ime dobile leta 2006, ko je pokroviteljstvo prešlo na kavarniško mrežo Costa.

Letošnjega zmagovalca, ki je pred Pure napisal že pet drugih romanov in se enkrat uvrstil celo v ožji izbor za bookerjevo nagrado, so razglasili na včerajšnji slovesnosti v Londonu. Nagrada bi Millerju končno lahko prinesla razvpitost, ki se mu je doslej izmikala, obenem pa je njegov roman, ki "čudovito ujame razpoloženje zatiranega in jeznega naroda, ki je tik pred tem, da strmoglavi koristoljubni in od realnosti odrezani vladajoči razred", zelo primerna "knjiga za nas čas", kot se je izrazil eden izmed lanskih žirantov, urednik Jonathan Ruppin.