Book Thirty-five: Five Quarters of the Orange

Book Thirty-five: Five Quarters of the Orange
Finished: June 21, 2010
Pages: 336

I have read one of Joanne Harris’s other books, Chocolat. That book is certainly similar in a number of ways to Five Quarters. Both set in France, with strange names for many of her characters, and food. Food always plays a huge role in her books. Little wonder that she has put out a couple of cookbooks.
Set during the German occupation of France, this story deals with the lives of three French children, their mother, and their interactions with a German soldier. The children (Boise is nine at the time, the eldest, Cassis is not even sixteen) spy on their neighbors in order to gain favor with Tomas: “We were wild animals, just as Mother said, and we took some taming. He must have known that from the start, the clever way he set out to take us one by one, making each feel special…Even now, God help me, I can almost believe it. Even now” (108). Over the course of the book, the relationships between all the various characters come to light as Boise, now an old woman, discovers her mother's recipe book and all the secrets it contains.

Woke at six this morning, for the first time in months. Strange, how everything looks different. When you haven’t slept it’s as if the world is sliding away bit by bit. The ground isn’t quite in line with your feet. The air seems full of shiny stinging particles. I feel I’ve left a part of myself behind, but I can’t remember what. They look at me with such solemn eyes. I think they’re afraid of me. All but Boise. She’s not afraid of anything. I want to warn her that it doesn’t last forever.

Many of the issues the characters face are ones that are of their own making. Although you would think that I would place the blame on the Germans, and the secrecy that didn't allow for free expression which led to the tragedy in the book, but I don't. I place the blame on the shoulders of all the characters, especially Boise. She causes a lot of the trouble in the book through her own choices to be trouble herself. Although in the end she regrets some of these actions, “Of course, by then there were to be no more oranges, ever again. I think even I had lost my taste for them” (222), I felt that she was not as remorseful as much as avoiding blame and consequences.

Good Reading,
Caitlin