A good read, but not one I'd read again

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	• Five Quarters of the Orange Joanne Harris Harper Perennial, 2002 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 80 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A *Dark* Chocolat

Five Quarters is my favorite of all Joanne Harris' novels. But what I like about it most is what other readers tend to dislike. Namely, it is not as much about food (though food certainly maintains a prominent position here) as, say, Chocolat or Blackberry Wine. For me, I enjoyed the range of the story, the multiple levels and character juxtapositions. The background texture (food/locale/time) are balanced perfectly for a tale of growing up. Not so much a tale of lost innocence (Framboise is never innocent, even as a child), it is more a mystery story. As the past unfolds, we simultaneously admire and revile the mother, until . . . well, I won't spoil the end.

Another reason I prefer this novel over her others is because the tone is darker. Not the lilting, Disneyesque aura of her other books (though they are ALL good, and each has its darker side), the poetic prose of Five Quarters focuses more on the characters' demons than their angels. Along with Chocolat, Five Quarters is one of the few books I read more than twice.

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Like a house of cards

Having drowned her sorrow and resentment in the calm and safe waters of years of conventional family life and motherhood, Framboise, recently widowed, decides to trace her steps back to an eventful past.

She returns to Les Laveuses, a village by the Loire, theatre of her childhood performances and hiding place of her life's deadly secrets. She returns under a different name, lest her true identity be revealed. She leads a quiet, inconspicuous life, steering clear of the limelight, doing everything in her power to divert attention and avoid recognition. Her listless nephew and his malicious wife will try to change all that and will set in motion a sequence of events that will force Framboise to face the past and seek redemption.

Set against Harris' much favored backdrop of the french countryside and appearing through a diaphanous veil of bitter-sweet culinary scents and flavors, the story's made up of countless mysteries, secrets and lies, laid on top of one another, forming a fragile structure of verisimilitude, a structure that eventually will come tumbling down like a house of cards.

Despite the bitterness that trickles through the words, Harris' sumptuous writing leaves a luscious taste on the tongue. Hugely enjoyable in every way.

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A good read, but not one I'd read again

I enjoyed it quite a bit for some of the reasons already stated below -- it's a darker reader, less sweet and creamy as others from Harris. While one reviewer remarks that the book is
without joy, I can agree for the most part, but not entirely.

While there is outwardly no tender mercies in the lives of this family during the occupation, there is neverthless joy found in singular moments. The mother, a bitter, tormented and joyless creature, does manage to find joy in the simple and clean recipes she concocts, in her trees -- her orchard.

What I found rather remarkable is that while the mother was unwilling or able to share much in the way of genuine affection or love, she nevertheless let her cooking for her children speak volumes. Perhaps it was just a lucky accident that she loved food so much that her children benefitted by happenstance, but here we have a family with literally nothing -- an orange at a market is a rare treat (for a multitude of reasons) -- but mother ensures they have well-crafted meals, never scrimping on her care and attention to what she can craft from her farm.

I heartedly agree with another reviewer who states that the details of the tragedy which sets the village against mother is so long in the telling that it almost -- no, it did -- become completely anticlimatic. It was merely a page I rushed through in order to move ahead and see how Framboise dealt with the unforgiveable indiginities visited upon her by her present day relatives -- two completely loathesome creatures set out to exploit her, and her family's past.

At long last, in the end, we find ourselves happy for the the late-delivered tender mercies so long overdue Framboise, but thinking not much at all about the Tomas tragedy which haunted her, from her youth.

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A child living in occupied France

Interesting read - and good balance between the two stories: the present day and memories of the protagonist's childhood in occupied France. Story moves slowly - perhaps too slowly. Nonetheless, it is interesting and written in vivid detail.

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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