Tring Book Club - Mr Phillips and Pure

We seemed to have chosen to read Mr Phillips by John Lanchester by accident. At the last meeting I had mentioned the new book by the same author called Capital that had received great reviews, and that I had brought one of his earlier novels. Everyone thought that a short book about one day in the life of a man who had just lost his job but could not tell his family, sounded quite interesting. In the event it was a strange story, mainly because the main character was a fairly sordid character and a bit of a pervert. I was not looking forward to what the ladies of the book club might say. In the end they felt a bit like me. The writing seemed a little old fashioned  and ended up just a series of (mis)adventures. I guess it was supposed to be funny, but although there are a few comic situations, it just felt ordinary. The comment that "Banks are just casinos" is an interesting prediction given that the book was written in 2000. Mr Phillips does visit the Tate Gallery and this sounds an interesting place to visit, now Tate Britain. The second half of the book is a lot better and the unexpected redemption of Phillips at the end saves the day.

I normally avoid historical novels, but Pure by Andrew Miller had won the 2011 Costa Book of the Year, so when it was chosen, I thought it might be good. Little did I expect to find a novel as good as anything I have read over the last few years. It follows the story of a young engineer Jean-Baptsite Barrate as, in 1785, he is engaged by the minister to clear the overflowing and rancid cemetery of les Innocents in the heart of Paris. The book's descriptions of the locality give a tremendous atmosphere and you are transported to the time and place with the detail of your surroundings. The characters are brilliantly formed, I liked the way that after sixty odd pages of their introduction, the story visits each of them as they retire for the night, a round up of who's who so we know they are part of what happens next. The only slight criticism is the foreign sounding names, places streets and occupations that leave one a little bewildered. But this is a vivid portrayal of eighteenth century Paris on the cusp of revolution, a truly wonderful book.
SPOILER ALERT
After I read Pure, I googled les Innocents by chance, and whereas I had read the story as a complete work of fiction, I found that the cemetery actually existed and did have to be cleared. There are pictures of the old cemetery and church before and after clearance, and the area is now a square called Place Joachimdu Bellay. Amazing.