Five Quarters of the Orange: A Novel (P.S.)

This is written just as beautifully as all her other books, however, it is much darker than her other work so be prepared. It soon draws the reader into its tight web of intrigue and cannot be put down until finished.

Joanne Harris has a wonderful way with words. Five Quarters of the Orange is a work of literature weaving a story around history, tradition and peoples interaction through the eyes of a perceptive child and of that child now old. An excellent tale

The story was slow to get underway, but engaging once it gained some momentum. I found it to be well written but the story is dark and cruel. Some reviewers found it resonated with their lives, but I cannot imagine a daughter being as cruel to her mother as Framboise was to hers. They were characters that were hard to live with. I am conflicted in my assessment since it was well written. I have read Blackberry Wine, by this author,which I liked much more.

I thoroughly enjoyed the style of writing and format of the story. I tired of the protagonist very quickly and did not
like her, but the prose style overcame that personal issue for me. I struggle through 60% of the book but the last
40% when finally the tale fell into place I liked very much. I am a fracophile, so loved everything French, the descriptive food,
recipes, the fruits and in depth family life cam alive. I ended the book not understanding the mother's issues, medical problems and found with the title of the book quite confusing and not resolved in so many ways. The threads of the love obsessions throughout came together and made the last 40% of the book a resolution and the reader a sense of inclusion. However as with the mother, the sisters plight was just out there, The metaphors were quite brilliant and make her an interesting and quite fascinating author.
I will read her works as she definitely challenges the reader on her story telling journey. And possibly the unresolved factors of characters within the book is what makes it more real. Therefore my criticisms can also be argued as the strength of the book.
To do a final nitpick. I do strongly feel the girl should have been 11 or 12 and not 9 as no matter how I hard I try to get my head around it I cannot believe a nine year old capable of so much of what was in the story line. An eleven year old is still a child on the cusp of such feelings and actions in the story, but I became frustrated that a nine year old held such a force. Perhaps I am wrong but this is my opinion and how I reacted to the story.

This was chosen by my book club. The characters were well-developed and I admit it's a well written book, but it was unpleasant to read due to the story line. There were only a couple of people I mildly cared about. It was also hard to follow because (a) there's a lot of French that I didn't understand and (b) much of it is written from the perspective of a child so I couldn't tell what the real story was.

France during World War Two through the eyes of a nine year old. Told in flashbacks many years later from the same location, a mystery unfolds to a startling climax. An old farmhouse, children trying to make sense of their occupied country, and a German officer enters their life....

Some books have a great start... a few continue with a wonderful narrative, plot and development of characters with a fascinating end. This is one of them. My own mother lived through these times in Europe with the invasion of fascism and through her eyes I can begin to understand the fine balance many single mothers had to master between survival and protection of their families (while husbands were at the front or dead) and the easier route of abiding by the enemy invader's rules. Judging individual responses is hard especially for a generation that did not live through the ordeal and who know what was the final outcome. This novel is true to the environment and she takes you through the eyes of a young adolescent in turbulent times; you follow with intense interest the weaving of the plot, with both fantasy and reality mixed in complex characters that are more real the more fantastic they are. When I started and read how she describes what her mother left for each of her children and how she interprets her mother's love for each though her will I was hooked. It is a great reading, unless you prefer not to confront the hardness of life in time of war and occupation,

Joanne Harris' novel is set in wartime France and fast-forward to modern days, when Framboise Dartigan runs a restaurant in a small village on the Loire. Framboise has some valuable recipes, coveted by her family, even though they inherited the family estate and she, just a bottle with a Perigord truffle in oil and a tattered book of notes. The mother of these children, all named for fruits and not saints, was a noted harridan and migraneuse, alternately scolding her children and abusing them and their father when her headaches set in, heralded by an olfactory hallucination, the scent of an orange. This scent plays a disastrous part in a terrible tragedy, one that Mirabelle, the mother is blamed for. The revelation of how this tragedy unfolds is like a bang on the head, when you finally put the flashbacks and the actual event together. All three children (Cassis, the son, Reine-Claude the pretty daughter and Framboise, secretly Mom's favorite) are haunted by the events of the war, in which they at first unwittingly play the part of collaborateurs. Later, it's not so innocent.

This is a sad, but lyrical novel. I didn't enjoy it as much as the "Chocolat" series, due to the tragic underpinnings of the story. But the viewpoint, from the eyes of less-than-savvy children playing in a dangerous, adult world, was fascinating and as always, Harris is an amazing writer. You can't put any of her stories down for a moment.

i really looked forward to reading and loving this book, as i had with "chocolat" and it's sequel, "the girl with no shadow", but i just could not get into it. i found it depressing and literally had to plod through it. i would recommend one of the author's other books instead. there's a reason that this is being offered for only $1.99...

I bought this from a charity shop and voluntarily reviewed it.

I thought Five Quarters of the Orange was great. I loved it. Harris is one of my favourite writers. I loved the way events unfold, moving between the present and Framboise’s fear that her dark secrets will be forced into light and the events in her past that she is so afraid of being revealed. This dual narrative works really well. I thought the characters were all well written, made of flesh and blood. I loved the setting, rural France. Harris really brings it to life and I thought I was really there at times. Five Quarters of the Orange deals with some dark subject matter including war, occupation and death but manages not to be too depressing. I’ve read other books that deal with similar subjects and they tend to be very dark and almost shocking at times. Harris is an expert at writing about such things with a spark of humanity. I found this book heart-breaking at times. I loved Five Quarters of the Orange and would highly recommend it.

Throughout the story, my opinion of several characters wavered back and forth between positive and negative emotions. Often, the characters seemed so manipulative, so immature, so cruel and mindless, that it seemed there was no room for kindness or compassion on the pages, and I wondered where the story would lead. I immediately disliked the main character who seemed like "a bad seed" when she was a child. However, first impressions are often incomplete, and when I closed the book, I suddenly smiled and chuckled with surprise, because the information revealed at the end is unexpected, and the hard tone of the story softens. The author hints at family secrets, but I never guessed what they were until the book uncovered them.
This is an interesting and well told tale that takes place in a small village in France, during World War II. Although the German occupation and a particular German soldier play a major role, the actual war itself is really part of the background, and it is more about the relationships of the characters to each other and the circumstances they share that affect them, each in their own way. The characters personalities are really exposed and the details of their interactions are examined carefully. Some of the characters will not be agreeable to the reader, but that is because the author does a really good job of defining their flaws.

When Mirabelle Dartigen dies, she leaves the abandoned family farm, in the village of Les Laveuses, to her son Cassis. He has no interest in it, and since he needs the money from its sale to pay his debts, he sells it to his sister, Boise (Framboise). The only other sibling, Reine, is in an institution, and is incompetent. Boise wishes to return to and restore the family farm, although more than half a century has passed since she was last there at the age of 9. She must return under an assumed name to avoid any connection to a scandal that involved her mother, during the war, which ultimately forced them to abandon the farm. She had memories of looking for "Old Mother", a giant pike, that lived in the Loire. It had eluded all the other villagers. The legend said that if you caught her she would grant you your wish. This wishing moment had a tremendous effect on the future of the family.
Mirabelle had been a hard, bitter woman. She was a controlling, demanding, undemonstrative and unemotional single parent (her husband was killed in the war fighting the Germans). Subject to fits of anger and severe migraine headaches, often brought about by the scent of an orange, she had a sharp and biting tongue, and was often rude and capable of violence. There are similarities between Boise and Mirabelle. Both like to cook, both are stubborn and both have fierce tempers when pushed.
Boise, her brother Cassis, and sister Reine-Claude, walked on thin ice around their mother, not wanting to set her off. Theirs was a lonely existence. They had one friend to speak of, Paul Hourias, a seemingly dull witted boy about the same age as Reine. Their isolation made them devious and they even tormented each other, simply for its entertainment value. Eventually, they befriend or are befriended by a German soldier, Tomas Liebnitz, who is a self-serving young man, who uses the Dartigen family to feather his own nest while he enchants the children. The reader will be hard put to think of these children, or much that is related to this family, for that matter, as nice. They all seem to be scheming and self-serving without regard to the consequences.

Mirabelle left Boise an album filled with recipes and a coded kind of diary interspersed within the pages. It reveals the secrets of her life, and as the message is deciphered and Boise's memories are examined, the story and its mystery begins to unfold. When she is finally settled and is running a wonderful little French Café in her home, using her mother's mouth-watering recipes, she rekindles a friendship with her childhood friend, Paul. When, out of the blue, Cassis and his wife Laure come to call on her, pretending to be concerned about her, but really angling to get the family recipes, the anger she harbors toward her brother since childhood, explodes again.

Although it would be easy to chalk up the actions of all of these characters to immaturity, a lack of sophistication or a lack of intelligence, that excuse would simply be too easy and too convenient. The feelings Boise had toward the German soldier did not seem age appropriate. Her brother and sister seemed too naïve to not suspect that their behavior was very dangerous. Their innocence seemed too contrived. The cause and effect of their anger toward their mother seemed outsized and inappropriate, at times, since she wasn't really intentionally cruel to them, she often tried to please them with special treats, but she was subject to seizure like headaches which brought on angry tirades and violent reactions and a need for medication which continued to grow and consume her.

The author will keep the reader guessing right up to the end of the story when all the missing pieces fall into place. Each of the characters, major and minor, have their own personalities, and they come alive for the reader. At time, Boise seems alternately malevolent, immature, but then, later in life, she is somehow more tender and soft, unlike her bitter and hard parent. It is a fast, engaging book that will please many readers.

Such an interesting story. I loved the characters in this novel. The World War II setting was perfect for getting a new perspective on what it must have been like to live in a village in France. Joanne Harris is a an author to be followed as she is the author of other great books.

This is the story of Framboise who returns to the village where she grew up after leaving a long time ago. She is extremely concerned that the villagers will figure out who she is, creating mystery and intrigue as the narrative alternates between the past and present. Through her memories, we meet Framboise as a child and experience the summer the Germans were in town. In the present we follow Framboise's attempt to decipher the hidden secrets in her mother's scrapbook.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the writing was fantastic. Most of the story is told from the point-of-view of a child and I was fascinated because there is a big difference between Framboise in the present and the past. Although we flashback to Framboise's childhood, this isn't a story about a nostalgic childhood summer. This is a deep tale with a splash of dark sensibilities. I loved the complex characters and I don't think you really understand them until the end. I was surprised to find and enjoy the references to different food and drink, but it is weird that all the character's had a "fruity" name. The mystery is a big surprise all the way till the end.

Ultimately if you like a serious summer read, this is the book for you. I would definitely classify this book as literature that doesn't require you to think too hard.

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 suffers from horrible migraines in addition to some psychological problems. Mirabelle always knows when one of her "spells" is coming, because she smells oranges, even though she strictly forbids them in the house.

Framboise and her two siblings (all, interestingly, named after foods - Framboise itself means raspberry) strike up a capitalistic relationship with a German soldier (part of the occupying force). The children provide a little information here and there about black market activities in exchange for items such as chocolate, magazines, and other products scarce in war-torn France. (Framboise always asks for an orange as part of her "payment." She uses its peel to trick her mother into thinking one of her spells is coming. This allows Framboise to not only inflict suffering on her mother, but also to gain a few hours of freedom as her mother holes up in her room, desperately trying to ward off the migraine.) The children don't really realize what they are doing. After all, the people they inform on are not killed or jailed. The soldier simply extorts them for his own goods.

And the soldier, named Tomas, ably fills the masculine void left by the children's father. In a world devoid of much affection (their mother is a brusque, busy woman not prone to displays of tenderness), the children love him. Before the end of the novel, though, the soldier turns up dead. And how he dies, and who pays the price for his death, are secrets of the novel I won't spoil here.

This book is much about mothers and daughters. Upon her death, Mirabelle leaves her "album" to Framboise - a book full of recipes, thoughts, notes, etc. By reading the album, Framboise comes to know her mother in a way that she never has before. The relationship between the two is certainly acrimonious; Framboise often refers to it as a war, trying to win this or that battle. But as the book progresses, even Framboise herself admits that she and her mother are very much alike.

Also, Harris is a master of description. She frequently writes about food - the foods that Mirabelle cooks, the foods that Framboise cooks as an adult, all the recipes in the "album" that Mirabelle leaves to Framboise upon her death. Your mouth will be watering. Have a Patricia Wells cookbook handy; you'll want to whip up some French country food.

Lastly, the novel is about secrets. It is, after all, the tale of Framboise finally telling a secret that she has carried with her for her entire life. This is where the title comes in - it's one of the secrets that Framboise has kept. Framboise tells no one, not even her siblings, of her use of the orange to trick her mother into thinking a migraine is coming. As a result, when her two siblings (and one friend) see her with one of the oranges she's procured, they ask her to share it. In order to reserve some of the peel for her secret purposes, Framboise turns her back to her siblings/friend while she "quarters" the orange. But in fact, she divides it into five pieces, hiding one of the slices in her pocket. This way, she saves one-fifth of the orange to use on her mother. The fifth quarter of the orange is the "something" that no one knows about. It is what is hidden. And for a novel filled with secrets, I think Harris chose the perfect title.

I heartily recommend this book.