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A review by footnotes_and_tangents
Pure by Rebbecca Ray
"Guillotin calls every morning and again in the early evening. He stands over his patient, weighs the odds, then looks out at the church of les Innocents, thinks large thoughts about men, their heads, their hearts, the way of the world. The old world and the world that is, perhaps, coming."
It is Paris, 1785. In four years something will happen. But for now, the Minister in Versailles needs a Parisian cemetery emptied. All those bones are cluttering up and stinking out the neighbourhood. Time to clear out the past and get the earth ready. Ready for what? An engineer is brought in from Normandy. He believes in reason and the future and Voltaire. But the old Paris, wild and irrational, is not quite ready to be swept away. The engineer is heading for a fall, a blow to the head. Best call the doctor. Call doctor Guillotin.
A weird, absurd story. I enjoyed the first half better than the second, but would definitely pick up something else by Andrew Miller.
It is Paris, 1785. In four years something will happen. But for now, the Minister in Versailles needs a Parisian cemetery emptied. All those bones are cluttering up and stinking out the neighbourhood. Time to clear out the past and get the earth ready. Ready for what? An engineer is brought in from Normandy. He believes in reason and the future and Voltaire. But the old Paris, wild and irrational, is not quite ready to be swept away. The engineer is heading for a fall, a blow to the head. Best call the doctor. Call doctor Guillotin.
A weird, absurd story. I enjoyed the first half better than the second, but would definitely pick up something else by Andrew Miller.