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Jonathan Franzen

Purity Paperback – 22 August 2016

by Jonathan Franzen (Author)

1,400 ratings

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The Sunday Times bestseller from the author of Freedom and The Corrections
Pip Tyler doesn’t know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she’s saddled with student debt and a reclusive mother, but there are few clues as to who her father is or how she’ll ever have a normal life. Then she meets Andreas Wolf – internet outlaw, charismatic provocateur, a man who deals in secrets and might just be able to help her solve the mystery of her origins.

Print length

576 pages
Language

English
Publisher

4th Estate GB
Publication date

22 August 2016
Dimensions

12.9 x 3.7 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

0007532784
ISBN-13

978-0007532780
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From the Publisher

Product description

Review

‘Dazzling’ Guardian

‘Furiously funny’ Telegraph

‘Superbly readable, it is the work of a novelist at the height of his powers … This new work by an American master of realism has novelistic pleasures in abundance’ Sunday Times

‘Purity makes the most compelling reading, and Franzen reveals himself here to be even more a master than ever’ Evening Standard

‘It has kept me up every night for a week, and now that I’m done, I’ll miss its wit, its messed-up characters and its emotional complexity’ Financial Times

‘Franzen’s most fleet-footed, least self-conscious and most intimate novel yet … Franzen has added a new octave to his voice’ New York Times

About the Author

Jonathan Franzen's work includes four novels (The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, The Corrections, Freedom), two collections of essays (Farther Away, How To Be Alone), a memoir (The Discomfort Zone), and, most recently, The Kraus Project. He is recognised as one of the best American writers of our age and has won many awards. He lives in New York City and Santa Cruz, California.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ 4th Estate GB (22 August 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 576 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0007532784
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007532780
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 3.7 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 185,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 2,328 in Men's Adventure Fiction
- 5,624 in War & Military Action Fiction (Books)
- 6,225 in War Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
1,400 ratings

About the author

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Jonathan Franzen

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Jonathan Franzen is the author of five novels--Purity, Freedom, The Corrections, The Twenty-Seventh City, and Strong Motion--and five works of nonfiction and translation, including Farther Away, How to Be Alone, and The Discomfort Zone, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the German Akademie der Kunste, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Customer reviews

5 star		40%
4 star		25%
3 star		17%
2 star		9%
1 star		9%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Reviewed in Australia on 15 November 2015

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Oh Jonathan dear boy! I signed up for the full ride on this one - and away we went!

As expected, I found the first quarter to be exceptionally good - loved it. But then, I went into a complete about-turn - and hated the next third.

You do confuse me. But then the last third you brought me back from the brink.

Apart from finding that you did not write at all well in Pip's voice for this last third - I plodded on - completed the book and can recommend that others readers come on board and find their own 'choose your own adventure'.

This is a very contemporary novel and should be read, but is it up to Franzen's past glories? I think not.

2 people found this helpful

Hated it. The main character was irritating

Reviewed in Australia on 25 February 2017

Verified Purchase

Hated it. The main character was irritating. The first few chapters made me want to find the author and throw the book at him. Boring and pretentious. How does this stuff get published. Waste of money

Citizen-Gladiator

Beautiful but Hard

Reviewed in Australia on 2 November 2015

Verified Purchase

This is beautifully written literature but the prolonged interaction between the characters is so often painful, stupid, or destructive that it is hard to read. The novel reveals too much of the depth of our human weakness, idiocy and failure, and not quite enough of the fact that occasionally we get things right, and we treat each other decently.

Intense, interesting but interminable

Reviewed in Australia on 5 May 2016

Verified Purchase

Humanity may be ugly when left to over-introspection, but a novel as long as this needs to be leavened by some more positive human attributes during the journey, rather than just at the sudden end.

One person found this helpful

The subject matter was interesting but there was to much ...

Reviewed in Australia on 9 October 2015

Verified Purchase

The subject matter was interesting but there was to much attention to the graphic sexual nature of the characters. I also thought it could have been shorter as there was always a bit more length to stories than necessary. This staccatoed the overall story somewhat.

Reviewed in Australia on 11 October 2017

Verified Purchase

What a great story! There are not many authors out there who know that much about human relationships. I enjoyed every character and the interesting settings but mostly Franzen's wisdom.

Deborah Ann Turner

Unconvincing. Over the top

Reviewed in Australia on 17 August 2017

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Not completely convincing character portrayals, too many sudden mood and plot swings; plot (too) neatly packaged. Also difficult for me to like and identify with the characters

Reviewed in Australia on 16 November 2015

Verified Purchase

Is it non fiction posing as fiction, or are all great books that? Of course it's a story but with such depth and, as ever with this author, pure craft in the telling.

Top reviews from other countries

danny hutchinson

Good book... but not as good!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 May 2019

Verified Purchase

Good book... but not as good as some of his previous work. (No spoilers)

It is pretty well written and often captivating and thought provoking at times, though it does seem to go a little deep to the point where it feels like a slog to get through those heavy sections... maybe that says more about me than the book though!

The book itself is a nice read most of the time but does have some somewhat implausible characters resulting in the plot becoming unusual and almost unbelievable at times. Yes, I am aware it is a work of fiction, I just like that fiction to have some semblance in reality which I think helps to keeps me on the hook.

The characters are at times over the top but still feel unfulfilling when it comes to depth and development, leaving a feeling that a lighter touch might sometimes be better when getting into the more intense psychological nature of the protagonists, while other characters could do with more than a very basic, cursory outline. The story is alluring until midway through when the key plot twist is revealed, in my opinion, a little too early... from there, the story drifts into monotonous, surface scratching insights which combined with a very predictable chain of events mean that the end of the book draws to a lackluster finish. I'm not sure whether the quality of the writing has suffered in comparison to his other books, or whether the attempt at something different has led to a decent book, but something which could have been a lot better.

All in all an enjoyable book and I would recommend it, but it's not on the same level as Freedom or The Corrections... which I would highly recommend reading if you enjoyed this book or if you haven't read it yet but are looking for something similar. Unrelatable and stereotyped characters combined with a story with not so much purpose as it has brashness, make it a far cry from his other works which resonated much more with me. Hopefully this will be a platform for Franzen to create more like this, but with a more fine tuned approach. Recommended!

Thanks for reading my review!

5 people found this helpful

David Porter

Strange

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 February 2022

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A difficult but ultimately rewarding read. I found it hard to follow when progressing from one chapter (timeline) to the next and by the penultimate chapter as all the timelines met , I enjoyed the book almost in retrospect.
I would read it again one day: but there are so many books I haven’t yet read once!

Dr. J. Crawford

I think he gets better and better This is such a meaty novel with ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 April 2016

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I have to confess I'm a big fan of Jonathan Franzen. I think he gets better and better This is such a meaty novel with great characterisation. Allthe main characters have a past which gradually is revealed and comes to influence the present. There is so much truth in here regarding what drives people and why the become what they are.
If you enjoyed "Freedom" you won't be disappointed with Purity. Its a brilliant read.

7 people found this helpful

Maggie E

... contemporary American writers and PURITY must surely be his best novel so far

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 January 2016

Verified Purchase

Johnathan Franzen is one of the major contemporary American writers and PURITY must surely be his best novel so far. He directs the complicated intertwining of the lives of his characters, some almost grotesque, many impure, with panache. As he examines the various 'isms' of our time, bores deeply into the most puzzling of human relationships, and maintains the 'Hamlet' theme right to its moving conclusion, he does so with perfect control and warm humor. The examples of his fresh and captivating language are numerous: right now I'm remembering the description of an aging hand and Pip and Jason's delightful and hugely symbolic tennis ball whacking at the end of the novel. This is a work to be taken up again, savored, chuckled over.
Why not 5 stars? It could have been shorter!

One person found this helpful

Dom

Really complex and amazing book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 January 2017

Verified Purchase

This is not 'just a book' is a masterpiece of literature. It explores what the condition of youth of the last 50 years: its complexity and contraddictions. As usual, Frenzen gives you extensive insights on his characters biography. Sometimes I thought "tmi" but at the end I was really convinced that these people existed for real, so much that I found myself googling some of their names just in case they were real (of course they were not). Reading Frenzen is not easy, it requires patience but those who endure will duly be rewarded. Loved it!

7 people found this helpful

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