Five Quarters of the Orange

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Joanne Harris

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Pages: 368 (Paperback)

ISBN: 0552998834

Pub: Black Swan

Pub date: 2002-01-01

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 5330

Editorial Review:

Joanne Harris' sensational novel Five Quarters of the Orange revolves around a recipe book, continuing the theme of culinary intrigue begun in Chocolat and Blackberry Wine. Framboise, the middle-aged narrator, begins her story in Les Laveuses, on the banks of the Loire:
When my mother died she left the farm to my brother, Cassis, the fortune in the wine cellar to my sister, Reine-Claude, and to me, the youngest, her album and a two-litre jar containing a single black Perigord truffle.
Framboise returns to the village where she grew up during wartime, and with the help of the recipes scribbled in her mother's album, opens up a small restaurant. However, she is desperate to keep her identity a secret even amongst the aged villagers with whom she played on the banks of the Loire in the years of German occupation during the Second World War. Framboise immerses herself once again in the peaceful rhythms of village life, pungently evoked by Harris's evocative prose. But slowly, reluctantly, Framboise begins to unravel the terrible wartime secret that drove her family away from the village. As she cuts between idyllic descriptions of the village and the increasingly dark memories of the war, Framboise admits:
I know, I know. You want me to get to the point. But this is at least as important as the rest, the method of telling, and the time taken to tell. It has taken me fifty-five to begin, at least let me do it in my own way.
This could be a description of Harris's prose itself, as it slowly and deliberately cuts between Framboise's fragile present and her happy childhood, destroyed by the tragic innocence of youth. Although Five Quarters of the Orange finds Harris on familiar ground to Chocolat, this is a much darker and compelling novel of childhood nostalgia and betrayal, and the need to confront the tragedies of the past before they destroy the possibilities of a happier future. --Jerry Brotton

Reader Reviews:

ok (0/0 people found this helpful)

this wasn't as good as I'd expected from the reviews. I couldn't warm to the characters and the main character Framboise was quite awful, without any redeeming qualities and rather frightening. Don't expect the warm sensuality of chocolat. Despite this I did want to get to the end so the story did have something to keep me interested.

Brilliant! (1/1 people found this helpful)

One of the most rewarding books that I have ever read- at times moving, funny and intense; a brilliantly woven tapestry combining love, real, raw characters and the bitter, sad resentment of a child for a mother that she cannot understand. Complicated, touching and an incredibly enjoyable read. I would recommend it to anyone.

A lovely experience (2/2 people found this helpful)

As usual Joanne Harris writes with the succulence of the undoubted pleasure of eating! Five Quarters is a lovely story and the character Framboise is lovingly created and portrayed, a young girl who makes friends with A German soldier in hiding in occupied France.

Delicious!! (4/4 people found this helpful)

This was the 1st Joanne Harris book, and I have to say I was absolutely addicted to her books. Have read all her books, and this one is even better than Blackberry Wine or Chcocolate. The word that comes to my mind to describe this book is "magical". Joanne Harris is a wonderful writer, at a point I could swear I almost felt the scent of that orange...
I can't wait for her next two books, due to next month and August!

Curious Orange (3/3 people found this helpful)

On page one we discover that Framboise is left it seems with the lesser part of an unequal inheritance which actually proves to be the greater. That is the beginning of a story which is melded successfully between present day and wartime France. Romantic - yes. Soppy - no. It is difficult not to be impressed by the story which engages beautifully and patiently together a delicious recipe. The taste of an impregnable home that could never burn down. The smell of a river that flashes puddles in the sun and crashes like thunder in the storm. A mood that is scattered in the trees which is etched in broken country paths. As sharp and sweet as an orange.

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