I have to wonder if Andrew Miller actually set out to write a work of historical nonfiction when he wrote Pure and just got carried away with adding characters and dialogue while trying to dress it up, because the plot is pretty flat actually. The characters are interesting, but I enjoyed the history that I learned more than anything else about this book. This is not to say that I hated everything else, it’s just that I think this story would have worked better as narrative nonfiction.
If you look at Pure as a work of fiction, it’s the story of an engineer named Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a Norman who really wants to build bridges but will take anything at the moment. If you look at this as a work of creative nonfiction, it’s the story of the emptying of the Cimetière des Saints-Innocents that started in 1786. Saints-Innocents was located near the market of les Halles and had been in use since the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, it was overfull and apparently the stench of it was so bad that even eighteenth century Parisians noticed it over all the other stinks.
We met Jean-Baptiste as he accepts (reluctantly) his commission in 1786. He takes lodgings with a family that live near Saints-Innocents. The daughter of the house seems to have an odd connection with the cemetery, and objects to Jean-Baptiste’s work–along with a half-demented priest who has lived in the church of Saints-Innocents far too long. But aside from a general reluctance, there isn’t a lot of objection to moving the remains from Saints-Innocents to a new set of catacombs on the outskirts of the city and the work carries on, rain or shine, fair or fowl, until the last body is dug up the next year. I think I was more worried for the workers than they were, since some of the people buried there had been plague victims. But things actually go pretty smoothly, considering how much back-breaking labor was involved.
Given the timing of the story, I was more than a little surprised that Miller didn’t take advantage of the unrest that must have been brewing at the time. After all, this takes place only a few years before the storming of the Bastille and the Reign of Terror. This story is curiously stripped of politics. Miller does slip in a romance for Jean-Baptiste, but even that falls a little flat, actually. To be honest, I spent almost as much time on Wikipedia learning more about Saints-Innocents, les Halles, etc. and finding out which of the characters actually existed as I did reading the book. So, even though this book won the Costa Prize in 2011 with this book, I wouldn’t say this is a great read. It’s a good read, though, and worth it for the history.