The title of Lydia Millet's Oh Pure and Radiant Heart should tip prospective readers off. There is a pat lyricism to the title while at the same time it mocks the atomic explosion gracing the cover. Oh Pure and Radiant Heart purports itself to be a quiet contemplative beauty while in content it more resembles a bitter 80-year old woman, screaming at the kids to get off her lawn. The sad fact is, there are many problems with Oh Pure and Radiant Heart and not much to recommend to it. So lets get into it, shall we?
The story follows Ann, a depressed hollow-eyed librarian. Ann, like the author, hates life and shambles through her existence like a zombie. Three of the leading physicists from the Manhattan Project turn up one day for no reason. These three are easily the best part of the book: each is an interesting and well rounded character. They (after endless scenes of eating out) decide that they will use their apparent second existence to press for nuclear disarmament, a noble, if fairly irrelevant goal.* Ann, like all members of the undead, crave life and latch on to the only exciting people in the entirety of Oh Pure and Radiant Heart (OPRH). They race around in increasingly boring and disjointed fashion until a flat ending.
The book that OPRH most closely resembles is The Watch. OPRH is much better written of course, and actually has several interesting characters. But the whole historical-figure-inexplicable-recreated-in-the-modern-day thing is there, and they share the same goal of serving as platforms for their respective authors' facile liberal elitism. I'm a pretty liberal dude, and I have nothing against social commentary, but Millet's grudge against the modern day seems limited to nebulous complaints about people these days being crass, not caring enough about issues, something something, whine whine. The majority of her direct examples of society's breakdown seem to boil down to the fact that poor people are gross, and stuff made for poor people is ugly.
That nastiness is really what is at the core of OPRH, once you've stripped away the flowery words. The author hates people. Poor people, rich people, hippies (which is weird since who cares about hippies anymore?), Evangelicals- Millet hates them all. She hates any location on earth that does not contain breathtaking beauty. She has turned her back on the world and then writes a book full of ennui.
OPRH is full of poetic images. Longing suffuse the book. But the ugliness of the characters and the setting consistently undermine the prose. There is a larger problem with the style though. It follows a strict formula, and never breaks from it. The effect over time is maddening. Every. single. passage. must end in some poignant pungent statement. IE, Thirty thousand dogs are killed each year.
...
A dog, in the throes of joy, may bite a dick.
...
A dick can just as easily wound as it can be wounded.
...
Don't be a dick.
...
Et cetera, etc.
Nom nom nom
You may have gotten the sense over the course of this review that I did not enjoy Oh Pure and Radiant Heart. You would be correct in that assumption. Um, don't read this book. 0 out of 3 dead physicists awarded.
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Special review for my parents-in-law
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart is a beautiful book, full of deep feeling and powerful thought. Lydia Millet has gazed into the soul (or lack there of!) of modern society and artfully illuminated it's ills. It is a deep book, funny and somber at equal turns. Two thumbs up!
*While the nuclear disarmament of unstable extremist countries is very relevant to the modern day, the disarmament of the US doesn't seem like a priority. There is about a 0% chance the US will ever use the bomb again. Too much bad PR.
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