Hmm interesting book. My least favorite of the three Sheila Heti novels I’ve read (How Should a Person Be?, my favorite, and Motherhood, which I thought was very intelligent but didn’t love as much). I found the writing style to be somewhat grating—there’s a sort of childlike tone to the prose, a fairytale quality, which was obviously an intentional choice from Heti and importantly sets the tone of the novel, but I found it rather insipid, and was bored by how one-note it was. There were places where a certain image or idea was beautiful, but I couldn’t be enthralled by the writing qua writing.

I once heard Heti talk and she said that when she wrote How Should a Person Be?, one of her constraints to herself was that she wasn’t going to learn anything new—she was going to work only with what she already had in her brain, her experiences and knowledge. That constraint really worked for the book and made the book hilarious and genius. But it kind of feels like she keeps doing that, and it’s getting old… for me at least… Pure Colour feels similarly solipsistic to me. It seems on the surface that it is trying to expand outwards, that Heti is going bigger—following different characters, thinking about ~the universe~ and God and humanity and climate change (lol). But ultimately this feels the same to me as her other novels, it feels like ideas that Heti has already had in her head and even written about before—art and love and “the purpose of life”—and it’s not engaging with any new ideas (just new metaphors for those ideas) or creating any new social worlds. On the one hand, who cares—people say that writers basically just have one book in them and they write different versions of it, and it seems to me that that’s what Heti is doing, and plenty of my favorite writers fall into that camp as well. So perhaps I’m being too hard on Pure Colour. But what I’ll say is this—in HSAPB? and Motherhood, the solipsism, the feigned narcissism, is hilarious. There’s a line in Motherhood where the narrator says, “It’s going to be so hard not thinking about myself, but rather thinking about the soul of time. I have so little practice thinking about the soul of time, and so much practice thinking about myself.” Heti is great at that self-deprecation—a character is trying to think about art and life and philosophy, which she genuinely loves and is important to her, but it’s hard to think about those things when you want to think about sex and friendship and such. (Of course, in those two novels, Heti’s narrator’s thinking about those personal things becomes the art, it becomes the thing worthy of critical thought and creation.) Anyway, in Pure Colour there are many instances of Heti’s wryness and wit, plenty of funny lines, but the overall solipsistic form is less formally funny than it is in previous works, it functions differently, it is sad and about grief.

And yet I was affected by the book. There are some beautiful, moving, clarifying passages, which make the (sometimes inconsistent and contradictory) metaphorical constructs (the bird/bear/fish thing; the God first draft thing; the “gods inhabiting your body” thing) seem worth it. At first you think “What kind of silly, kindergartener/teenage stoner ideas are these??” And I never really stopped thinking that. But then, in moments, the metaphor works, and it’s illuminating. There’s a passage towards the end about those certain people who you feel are meant to be in your life, so you can watch them and know them, and maybe they feel the same way about you, or don’t. There’s a romantic, almost erotic pulse in the way Heti writes about Mira’s relationship with her father, and I was simultaneously moved and discomfited by it, it felt very real and emotional to me and I hadn’t read anything like it before. I didn’t have the same broad emotional reaction that it seemed other readers had, but definitely at parts I felt very sad, or seen, or like I should move back home to be closer to my parents. Pure Colour does feel like Heti has progressed to a new emotional depth, and she has done so in a unique way, in a way that—like a lot of her writing—seems very simple and easy and familiar and belies how complex and difficult it is to pull off.

this book was my first introduction to sheila heti and i came away feeling .. ambivalent. there are moments of piercing clarity in this novel but overall, i felt its musings to be rather bland and not nearly as insightful as i was led to expect. now this could be because her inquiries (the rote art, philosophy, God and death) were subjects that I don't find particularly interesting but i really think that these topics, which i admit have the potential to be rendered fascinating and thoughtful, were explored with sort of fragmentary sparseness that didn't feel as substantial or profound as the format would suggest. i think that perhaps i would have better luck with her other book on the psychology of women and their clothing.

I really didn't know what to expect with this one, it was my first Heti. I thought it was stunning; the concentrated, more micro view of existential questions was affecting and beautiful. I really didn't know where it was going at times, which kept me turning the page. A beautiful work.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for my ARC of this title.

Thank you to FSG and Net Galley for the advanced copy of Pure Colour by Sheila Heti. Here, we follow the story of Mira's life beginning at her time in school. She is learning to be a critic. So, it is strange- given her journey- to critique the novel.

The novel was interesting. The magical realism reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the blunt sexual imagery reminded me of Haruki Murakami.

After meeting Mira we take a galaxy level perspective to examine how Mira's relationships affect her life, how choices stick with us, how we love romantically and familiarly, and how we reckon with the concept of death. The story is, at times, confusing. But we also find out that the first draft of this world is messy and beautiful.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for providing me an ARC of Pure Colour, which will be available February 15th, 2022. when I was looking for ARC’s pure colour stuck out to me as a philosophical and adventurous book, but when it came to the actual plot it fell flat. I felt like the storyline of Mira was constantly muddled with different anecdotes, and I got lost with the storyline of becoming a leaf and felt uninspired through my whole time of reading. I truly wish I could’ve liked it more.

Firstly, Heti's previous novel (Motherhood) is one of my all-time favorite books, definitely Top 5 best books ever written IMHO. I also enjoyed her earlier novel, How Should A Person Be?, so I may be reviewing Pure Colour with a slight bias. It would probably be almost impossible for Sheila Heti to write a new novel that I love more than Motherhood, but she has come very close here. Pure Colour is very different from her previous works, as it is feels much more like a magical realism novel than her usual hyper realistic piece of autofiction.

I won't focus much on reviewing the plot of Pure Colour, because this is a novel about themes and metaphysical exploration over plot. Heti gives us a meditation on climate anxiety, spirituality, human evolution, grief, existential dread and more. It really gave me vibes the "The Vegetarian" by Han Kang, mixing metaphor and descriptions of nature to examine the human condition. I left this book feeling hopeful yet also melancholy.

Having lost my father to cancer in 2021, the depiction of parental grief hit me SO HARD. I get the impression that Heti herself has gone through loss of a parent because the grief was so realistic. Some of the dreams that she describes having about her father were the same dreams that I have had myself. I think you should be prepared to cry. I was sobbing. Heti makes every experience feel so universal, I don't know how she does it. We are all connected, I guess.

I received in advance reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

I really enjoyed the philosophy; the story a bit so.
Annie just never grew on me. As other people have commented, the father daughter relationship seems to be more of an emotional center

Having said that, I certainly enjoyed many of the pages of this short book, and did not feel like the time I gave to it was wasted. My mu favorite buy this writer, but I appreciate what she was trying to do.

3.5 rounded up

Sheila Heti has once again slipped into my consciousness and penned my thoughts to paper. Pure Colour is enlightening, obvious, inventive, and funny. It builds on Heti’s previous themes, and draws from science fiction, blending otherworldly realities with questions dreamed for another lifetime. One page even seems to reference Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is an unexpected crossover if intentional. Encapsulating, and easy to read. If Mort Garson’s “Mother Earth’s Plantasia” were a novel, this would be it. How Should a Person Be? is still my favorite, but Pure Colour is definitely worth a read.

ARC provided by NetGalley, thank you.

this is the first book that made me sit still for 2 hours and keep reading non stop, and that tells you a lot.
the amounts of themes that were touched and with such ease that the author takes us through each one of them was fascinating. it left me with a lot of questions, and sometimes i felt a little lost, but, i understand that's the point, we need to take this book as it is, weird but lowkey magical in a way.
it was really funny to read about "fixers" and their position in this story knowing I am going to be one soon.
ill be thinking about the concept of the first draft a lot for some time, and even if I'm not a "believer", that wasnt an impediment for me to not enjoy this book.
I'll for sure check out more about the author and I need to organize the annotations i made for this book because there are way too many but I'm really happy with the impact this book had on me.

PURE COLOUR is a lovely and meditative book exploring what it means to live a life and the extent to which we depend on others. The relationship between Mira and Annie is a bit puzzling, but nonetheless intriguing. The author's philosophical musings can be somewhat existential at times. I enjoyed the prose, which is both careful and energetic. Recommended for fans of literary fiction.

A new all-time favorite. Heti opens with a philosophical framework and the book explodes into a novel of grief, love, and longing. Absolutely brilliant. This is a book I see myself rereading every year.

I really enjoy the philosophical musings you can find in Heti's work, and this was no exception. Was she really a leaf? Was it a metaphor? Does that even matter, as she managed to pull herself back to life with Annie's help? The prose is beautiful.

The relationship between Mira and Annie left me wanting, and I wish it could've had a better conclusion, and be a little bit more built out. We all have those people that we are drawn to right away, but I didn't experience a lot of real depth to their relationship.

I really appreciated the close relationship Mira had with her father, and how it was almost to the point of codependency at times. When do we need to become our own people as adults, or do we? I wasn't wild about the discussions of Mira being her father's wife, but otherwise I liked that aspect a lot.

Overall, I enjoyed this one. It gives you so much to think and talk about, just like any Heti work.

In its earnest approach to identity and self-discovery, Pure Colour is a charming little novel, but gets bogged down by its insistence on its narrator trying to solve the infinite puzzle that is what it means to live a life. Whether through one's relationships or even what it means to have a human experience, Heti gives herself the hefty job of trying to make this novel comprehensible as well. While I don't think it entirely lands on its feet, Pure Colour's momentum with its prose and themes does leave the reader feeling aspirational to also look inwardly at oneself and one's own life. However, Heti almost gets too caught up in this frenzy of little epiphanies, daring to leave the reader behind.

3.5 but I rounded down.

This was one of my most anticipated books of 2022 but it was a bit of a let-down. Maybe my hopes were too high.

I really appreciated the concept of a first draft, and God stepping back to learn from us. The examination of relationships was really compelling, and held so much truth (who among us hasn't met someone and instantly clicked and never understand why that only happens with certain people, sometimes fleeting, sometimes lifelong?).

I also appreciated the leaf aspect- was she really a leaf? Was it a metaphor for grief, and coming to appreciate the things that we overlook in our busy lives? Does it matter? Really beautiful and well-written.

Now for my reservations: the relationship between Mira and Annie felt odd- why would Annie pull her out of her grief and then later be completely closed off to her? Where was the real connection between the two of them? We saw more of Mira and her father than we did her and Annie, which left me wanting more to understand their connection. Also, I really liked the relationship between Mira and her father until she started saying her father wanted her to be his wife. I just felt like that was unneeded- I get that parental relationships can sometimes become confusing in adulthood, but the way it was portrayed here made me uncomfortable at times.

I'm glad I read this, but it just wasn't the home-run I was hoping for.

This was an absolutely fantastic book about love, grief, and humanity. It's something of a philosophical meditation within a novel, and is pretty formally experimental. Sheila Heti is a genius. I know this will be a bit too abstract for many readers (particularly the center leaf section), but I loved this, as I did her earlier work.

What a gorgeous, confounding book! I do not even know where to begin -- this is largely a book "about" grief, but also about art. At the same time, there's something incredibly cosmic to the story, to the creation myth Heti creates from page one on. This is without a doubt her most mature novel to date. (Though, I will say I am probably still partial to Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?) Still, Pure Colour will receive a lot of the attention it rightfully deserves. There's a mournful quality to the text that I don't think Heti has explored in her work before. Though there's also still that wryness present from her previous works. Regardless, this is a standout.

Pure Colour is a very existential novel about a girl and the grief she feels for her father's death. I felt that for the first third of the book I was on board and understood where Heti was guiding me as a reader. But then there's a lot of use of the word "ejaculate" in reference to the father's spirit in relation to the daughter that she lost me. During the middle section of the book our main character is grieving and goes through these up and down waves of processing. This is also the "leaf" interlude, I just didn't question what was happening and tried to get through it. The side character of Anne felt like an add on to me, and I didn't understand fully why she was there. Honestly I felt too dumb to fully appreciate this novel, and while this is for someone I'm not sure it's for me.

There is this line from Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead" that I think about all the time:

"In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.”

I love this idea of our flawed world, with all its ills and all its beauty, could be missed by us (or those who follow us) if we are ever in a position to exist in some sort of form where we remember its history, but are also happier. I thought it would make the premise for some fantastic form of speculative fiction.

At its best, "Pure Colour" is exactly that. An experimental story about our world being the first draft of a better world to come. Where people are born bird, fish, or bear, depending on how they see life and love, and what their relationship is to God's creation. It reads both like a bedtime story and a new creation myth.

When this book works, it really works, which is why I'm torn about the rating. When it works, it had me in awe of the very notion of existence, how unlikely and precious it all is. When it works, it seems like this book was written for me, because it speaks exactly to this fear of mine, that why be ambitious, why leave home, why just not stay close to the people that we love and relish in the comfort of familiarity? What is the right distance of love?

However, for a short book, there were some passages that dragged. Where I felt Heti was becoming a bit too self-indulgent with her metaphors and her premise. It made reading the book rather frustrating. Even instances where I found the book a tad too twee for my tastes.

There were also bits about the internet that just took me out of the whole experience (especially when I consider how the book ended). I don't understand why contemporary writers feel the need to include and critique the internet and social media in a way that does not feel organic to the story in the slightest. Or at least, perhaps the problem here is that Heti was not able to make it feel organic. Whenever it happened, and it thankfully happened more towards the beginning, it would take me out of the story, out of the atmosphere that Heti had so meticulously created in what is essentially a modern fairy tale, with a bit of religious twist to it.

Nevertheless, while a more accurate rating of this reading experience would be a 3.5 (or even a 3), this book was bigger than the sum of its parts, so I am going to round up. The highs were very high.

Sheila Hetis Motherhood was on my top of the year list.PureColor will also be added to my years best list.A conceptual unique novel that kept me thinking turning the pages.The author writes in a book that travels from reality to fantasy and back.Will be recommending.#netgalley #fsg

Sheila Heti's latest novel plays with the traditional structure of narrative and turns it on its head. A very intellectual look at life as art. Framed around the study of becoming an art critic and then turning that critical eye onto the human experience. Very conceptual.