Tastier than chocolate and blackberry wine!! (Five Quarters of the Orange - Joanne Harris)

Member Name: lonestarsky

Product:	Five Quarters of the Orange - Joanne Harris
Date:	10/06/09 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A fantastic story!!!

Disadvantages: Starts off a bit slow

"Five Quarters of the Orange" is the third novel in Joanne Harris's "food trilogy", following "Chocolat" and "Blackberry Wine." Its interesting that the three books are referred to as a trilogy as this book has no connection to the other two except for the fact that food plays a prevalent role in the plot. Nevertheless this is an enjoyable book, albeit much darker than the first two, and in my opinion is by far the best of the three.

Framboise Dartigen tells us the story in first person; she is in her sixties and has recently moved back to her childhood home in the French village of Les Laveuses. Framboise has opened a small creperie where she sells food based on the recipes her mother left her in an album. However Framboise keeps her real identity secret from the villagers, instead referring to herself as Framboise Simon. They do not know she has any connection to the village and nor does she want them to as a dark secret hangs over Framboise's family, one which led to her mother being reviled and hated by the locals.

However Framboise's secret threatens to be exposed when her money-hungry nephew Yannick and his wife Loire demand the recipes from her album to use in his restaurant, otherwise they will expose her past to her new friends. This leads to Framboise reminiscing about the events of that fateful war-time summer.

In a sense this book contains two stories. One the one hand we have Framboise in the present dealing with Yannick's ploys to force her to give in to his demands, as well as Framboise's childhood narrative.

The key character in Framboise's childhood was her formidable mother Mirabelle, who was sour faced, ill tempered and plagued with migraines. She was only ever happy when creating masterpiece recipes in her kitchen. The album she left to Framboise contains many recipes but also lots of random entries written while she was suffering from a migraine, or heavily under the influence of the drugs she used to control them and was subsequently addicted to.

This novel starts slow, and indeed it took me a few days before I really got into it. But once you're hooked, you won't let go. Harris paints a wonderful picture of a rural childhood in wartime France and you feel as if you're actually there. She beautifully illustrates the notion of innocence lost, as Framboise, her brother Cassis and sister Reine-Claude become embroiled in situations that no child should ever find themselves in, leading to tragic consequences that will change their lives forever.

Framboise is not instantly likeable as a child, which I think is actually part of her appeal. Her honesty as she recalls her childhood self is refreshing. She was devious, spiteful and went out of the way to antagonise her mother. Framboise recognises this but at the same time is aware that she desperately missed her dead father and craved affection from her mother who could not show it. She admits now that she was more like her mother in temperament than she realised, and that her mother did love her. Indeed her mother even tried to show affection in small ways, however the feisty young Framboise spurned her efforts.

Although I wouldn't say Framboise is likeable, she is well written and she is easy to empathise with. As is her mother, who is clearly struggling to cope with bringing up three unruly children single handedly. I found Framboise more likeable as an adult; she has a great insight into life and is honest about the mistakes she has made in the past.

This book has many themes, one of the main themes being how the past works on us and how seemingly minor actions can throw our lives off in a completely different direction. It also shows how life can get tangled when childhood fantasies become embroiled with blatant adult situations.

Food plays an important part, as it is the way Framboise makes a living, plus it is her only remaining connection to her now deceased mother and is almost a means of communication between the two of them. As Framboise continues to reminisce and attempts to make sense of her mothers ramblings in her album she discovers a side to her mother she never knew existed, and that her mother harboured dark secrets of her own.

Framboise's mother took her secret to the grave. Perhaps it is this realisation that presses Framboise to reveal hers, and ultimately relieve her own burden.

The title is interesting and ties in wonderfully to a particular incident in the novel that I won't reveal here.

I loved this book. It has a slow start but once you get beyond that, its well worth a read and the truth, when it is finally revealed, will leave you stunned.

Summary: Best of the three. Read it!!