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Purity
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker, Jenna Lamia, Robert Petkoff
- Length: 24 hrs and 59 mins
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Purity
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Publisher's Summary
A magnum opus for our morally complex times from the author of Freedom and The Corrections. Includes an interview with the author.
Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother - her only family - is hazardous.
But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother has always concealed her own real name, or how she can ever have a normal life.
Enter the Germans. A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads Pip to an internship in South America with The Sunlight Project, an organisation that traffics in all the secrets of the world - including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong.
Jonathan Franzen’s Purity is a grand story of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder. The author of The Corrections and Freedom has imagined a world of vividly original characters - Californians and East Germans, good parents and bad parents, journalists and leakers - and he follows their intertwining paths through landscapes as contemporary as the omnipresent Internet and as ancient as the war between the sexes. Purity is the most daring and penetrating book yet by one of the major writers of our time.
Critic Reviews
"Head and shoulders above any other book this year: moving, funny and unexpectedly beautiful. I missed it when it was over." (Sam Mendes, Observer, Books of the Year)
"A cat's cradle of family life.... ‘Freedom' is a great book" (Kirsty Wark Observer, Books of the Year)
"No question about it: Freedom swept everything before it in intricately observed, humane, unprejudiced armfuls. There was no novel to touch it in 2010." (Philip Hensher, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year)
'Franzen pulls off the extraordinary feat of making the lives of his characters more real to you than your own." (David Hare, Guardian, Books of the Year)
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What listeners say about Purity
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kellie O'Connor
- 27-01-2023
Another Excellent Book by Franzen
The bonus interview with Franzen at the end also helped me get over myself for the times I have cringed at the slight misogyny of some of his characters.
I think Purity is intelligent, entertaining, and on par with his other fabulous novels.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Sharon
- 18-11-2015
A well written comment of relationships today
Purity is an engaging story written from multiple viewpoints giving a personal voice to each character. The story revolves around a young woman seeking personal truth. Her name Purity implies youthful innocence but she isn't innocent & betrays adults twice her age. Yet, there is a goodness to her actions & the reader comes to understand that truth in life isn't about little pockets of purity but about the greater areas of grey complete with lies & betrayals!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Not Half
- 04-11-2016
A good long story to get your teeth into
Would you consider the audio edition of Purity to be better than the print version?
I didn't read the print version, so I have no comparison of which is better.
Who was your favorite character and why?
I liked Leila. She was a much stronger female character than Pip. I liked her intelligence, professional prowess and no-nonsense manner, and I identified more with her as a mature woman, while recognising my younger self somewhat in Pip.
What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
I enjoyed the various voice artists' performances in the audio, which were well performed and added to my enjoyment.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
No, I felt that this book offered more black comedy moments than 'moving' moments.
Any additional comments?
I would have like to have read more of Leila's story, which in my opinion could have made a book in itself.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Minza Brown
- 10-01-2017
great book
I loved this book! It's complex and demanding but worth the effort. The narration is excellent.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- sophiek
- 05-12-2018
Interesting but
I liked the storyline. Seems original. I didn’t particularly liked the third narrator.
I think it could have been shorter.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rhetta
- 31-03-2017
intriguing
really enjoyed the book. interesting characters kept me interested the whole way through.
definitely recommend.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tim Jones
- 30-11-2022
Always clever
I've seen some reviews that throw shade on this novel but I found it to be enthralling & clever, as per usual from JF.
So many ineffable subtexts here and so much unspeakable humour.
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