Get drunk on Blackberry Wine (Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris)

Member Name: strange_child

Product:	Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris
Date:	09/11/01 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to read, interesting

Disadvantages: none

My mum bought this book for when we went on holiday to France, and she said that it Was Really strange, but quite good, so I decided to read it as well, when we got back to England. I haven't seen chocolat or read any other books by Joanne Harris, so I cannot make a comparison, but that can be a good thing though, because I can review it as an individual book in its own right.

<The plot>
The story starts off with a struggling writer, Jay, who about fifteen years ago wrote a bestselling novel based on his youth in Yorkshire, Jackapple Joe. He is uninspired, and writes trashy sci-fi novels and teaches in a university; on top of this he has a trashy girlfriend who is only interested in fame and money. But one night, he opens one of the five wines that were given to him when he was a boy, and the memories of his teenage summers come back to him. The novel switches between present day, and the summers between 1975-77, when he was sent off to his grandparents in Yorkshire, but ended up befriending a strange old man called Joe who was into magic, gardening and full of stories of his travels. At a sudden impulse, he leaves London after seeing an advert for a chateau in Lansquenet, which looks just like one that Joe said he was going to live in, and immediately buys it. Instantly he seems to make friends with the quaint locals, some of whom seem to avoid him at first, but eventually as good word goes around, he becomes popular. There is also the mystery of Marise, a strange woman who people say drove her husband to kill himself. While all this is going on, Jay gradually drinks the wine, and Joe makes an appearance. At first Jay is confused, but then he seems to accept him without question. There is also the mystery of what is Joe? He says that he astrally projects himself, but I think that he?s a ghost. Anyway, I'd better stop now, as I don?t want to give away the story, or the ending for that matter!

<The setting>
The story is set in
Pog Hill, Yorkshire and Lansquenet in France. Both are rural settings, with an old population, and I think that both are idealistic. One of the many themes in this book seems to be that rural settings are better than urban settings, as Jay leaves London for the rural French village. Some of the French villagers want Lansquenet to be urbanised. However from the way they are portrayed - as idealistic men jumping on any old band wagon - the reader doesn't take them too seriously, and the effect is that we are convinced that the rural village is better than a big town.

<The characters>
The characters are very colourful, and Harris knows who to manipulate what you think of them by their descriptions. There are also strange parallels between the French villagers, and the people he knew from Pog Hill, for example, there is an unemotional gardener called Narcisse, who is very much like Joe, and the little girl, Rosa, is physically similar to Gilly, a girl that he knew one summer.

<The writing style>
The writing style is clear and easy to follow, without being boring and too simple. First of all it is a bottle of wine talking, and I think that it is supposed to remain the narrator all of the way through, but after a while the reader forgets this, and it settles down into a normal 3rd person narrative. The novel flicks back to Jay?s youth every few chapters, so we get a bit of variety, and it's not one solid story all the way through, and I like that.

<What is the effect of the novel on the reader? >
The novel is definatly worth reading to the end, not just because it's a really good book, but also because the story picks up speed and develops a lot in the last 70 or so pages. A lot is revealed in the ending, that money and fame isn't anything, that some things are better left as they are and that you can carry on doing what other people did before they died.

Summary: