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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780060958022
ISBN: 0060958022
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: June 01, 2002
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: June 04, 2002
Sales Rank: 7844
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
In Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris returns to the small-town, postwar France of Chocolat. This time she follows the fortunes of Framboise Dartigan, named for a raspberry but with the disposition of, well, a lemon. The proprietor of a café in a rustic village, this crabby old lady recalls the days of her childhood, which coincided with the German occupation. Back then, she and her brother and sister traded on the black market with the Germans, developing a friendship with a charismatic young soldier named Tomas. This intrigue provided a distraction from their grim home life--their father was killed in the war and their mother was a secretive, troubled woman. Yet their relationship with Tomas led to a violent series of events that still torment the aging Framboise.
Harris has a challenging project here: to show the complicated, messy reality behind such seemingly simple terms as collaborator and Resistance. To the children, of course, these were mere abstractions: "We understood so little of it. Least of all the Resistance, that fabulous quasi-organization. Books and the television made it sound so focused in later years; but I remember none of that. Instead I remember a mad scramble in which rumor chased counter-rumor and drunkards in cafes spoke loudly against the new regime." The author's portrait of occupier and occupied living side by side is given texture by her trademark appreciation of all things French. Yes, some passages read like romantic, black-and-white postcards: "Reine's bicycle was smaller and more elegant, with high handlebars and a leather saddle. There was a bicycle basket across the handlebars in which she carried a flask of chicory coffee." But these simple pleasures, recorded with such adroitness, are precisely what give Framboise solace from the torment of her past. --Claire Dederer
Book Description:
In her bestselling and critically acclaimed novel Chocolat, Joanne Harris told a lush story of the conflicts between pleasure and repression. Now she delivers her most complex and sophisticated work yet, an unforgettable tale of mothers and daughters, of the past and the present, of resisting and succumbing -- an extraordinary work of fiction lined with darkness and fierce joy.
When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous woman they hold responsible for a tragedy during the German occupation years ago. But the past and present are inextricably entwined, particularly in a scrapbook of recipes and memories that Framboise has inherited from her mother. And soon Framboise will realize that the journal also contains the key to the tragedy that indelibly marked that summer of her ninth year....
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I really loved this book. The protagonist is Framboise, an old woman who is telling us the story of one monumental event in her life. As young girl growing up in the French countryside during World War II, Framboise had a poisoned relationship with her single mother, Mirabelle. Framboise's father has already been killed in the war, and the little family is struggling to establish a new dynamic amidst the swirl of events around them. Mirabelle is an accomplished cook with a bountiful farm, but she ... Read More
Rating: -
Despite beautiful and sensuous prose, this is not an easy read. It demands perseverence from the reader but in the end patience is rewarded: it delivers so much. Its structure is composed of two parallel tales, one set in the present and one comprised of 40-year-old memories of German-occupied France. Harris pulls no punches as she examines the actions and motivations of people living in times that often demanded troubling compromises ... and worse. Few are spared. The role of the good mother ... Read More
Rating:  -
This is a popular book--though it was more popular in Europe than the States. It begins with a mystery. As the mystery unfolds, it reveals character and culture. The main action of the book is told as back-story. A middle-aged woman returns to her native community in rural France. The story is wonderfully atmospheric. The atmosphere is created through an infusion of delightful food and wine and snippets of WWII era French culture. It is no doubt a popular book with the Martha Stewart crowd. But there ... Read More
Rating: -
After reading Chocolat (before the movie came out), I wanted to try another of Joanne Harris's novels. I picked up Five Quarters of the Orange at an airport and was impressed. The story is woven into a compact and powerful book that looks at life in Nazi occupied France. In the small village of Les Laveuses, you discover the small town life that stills continues even with Nazi occupation: farms, harvest, the change of people to the seasons, love, hate, gossip, etc.
Framboise Dartigen narrates this ... Read More
Rating: -
An adroit, mesmerising novel. I could not put this down, so astonishing and gripping was this story and Harris's subtle, impactful writing. I wanted it to go on forever, couldn't wait to get to the conclusion; the sign of a great book.
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