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Five Quarters Of The Orange [Paperback]

Joanne Harris
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Book Description

1 Jan 2002

Beyond the main street of Les Laveuses runs the Loire, smooth and brown as a sunning snake - but hiding a deadly undertow beneath its moving surface. This is where Framboise, a secretive widow, plies her culinary trade at the crêperie - and lets her memory play strange games.

As her nephew attempts to exploit the growing success of the country recipes Framboise has inherited from her mother, a woman remembered with contempt by the villagers, memories of a disturbed childhood during the German Occupation flood back, and expose a past full of betrayal, blackmail and lies.


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Frequently Bought Together

Five Quarters Of The Orange + Blackberry Wine + The Lollipop Shoes (Chocolat 2)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Black Swan; New Ed edition (1 Jan 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0552998834
  • ISBN-13: 978-0552998833
  • Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.5 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 11,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon 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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Her strongest writing yet: as tangy and sometimes bitter as Chocolat was smooth (Independent )

Outstanding ... beautifully written (Daily Mail )

Joanne Harris a naturally sensuous writer, but her latest book has a dark core...Her descriptive and narrative talents are put to a profounder use...This gripping tale is bound to be made into a film. It's as vivid a journey through human cruelty and kindness as I've read this year (Daily Telegraph )

Harris indulges her love of rich and mouthwatering descriptive passages, appealing to the senses ... Thoroughly enjoyable (Observer )

Just as she did in Chocolat, Harris indulges her love of rich and mouth-watering descriptive passages, appealing to the senses with seductively foreign names, and evoking the textures and smells of food. These descriptions are suffused with a child's wide-eyed wonder that lends the story a magical quality, almost like a folk tale or a children's story. Even having the Occupation as a backdrop, Harris sets out to tell a story that proves, like her previous books, to be thoroughly enjoyable... (Guardian )

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Unexpectedly moving – occasionally tragic 7 Jan 2003
By Steve Burrow VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
'Five quarters of the orange' is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. Written so blandly the book appears dark and gloomy, but this is far from the case.

Wartime France is portrayed through the eyes of the nine year old Framboise who's unworldly insight into the German occupation is in sharp contrast to the more familiar resistance-focused found in history books. She lives a life of fishing and adventure against the backdrop of her mother's kitchen – a place of wonderful cuisine brought to life with great skill. What tragedy turns her into the lonely old women that she becomes is kept well concealed until late in the story, providing a suspense that forced me to keep turning pages to find the answer.

The nuance of the recipes that form a large feature of the book were lost on me, but I'm sure will appeal to those who know their kitchen better. For those, like me, who prefer a compelling and human story this novel is sure to deliver. A book to be savoured!

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Best Ever Joanne Harris 2 Mar 2007
Format:Paperback
I won't write about the storyline as there are enough reviews on here to satisfy anyone.

In my opinion this is simply the best book JH has ever written and I have read them all. It is thoroughly brilliant from beginning to end and it sits handsomely in my top 3 all time favourite books.
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51 of 54 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly good 6 April 2001
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This book is a must for all Joanne Harris fans. It is better than 'Blackberry Wine', better even than 'Chocolat'.

It will also come as a surprise to 'Chocolat' fans, who, like me, might open it up expecting another sugary-sweet charming village comedy. The novel begins in a similar manner, with Framboise, now an elderly woman, settling into a French village, her old hometown. But throughout the text are scattered seeds of unease and doubt, and as the narrative slowly unravels, the reader becomes aware that she is hiding her identity and an ugly past.

The story very cleverly intercuts between Framboise as an elderly lady, around 60, and as a child of 9 in wartime France. It is the childhood memories which become the most intriguing - Harris brilliantly captures the difficulties of childhood - 'the cruelty of childhood' - and the poignant way her relationship with her mother disintegrates into hate and destruction. As a contrast to this is a love-crush she develops on a German soldier, which becomes incredibly touching. It was a stroke of genius that Harris explores this with a heroine who is only 9 - caught awkwardly between childhood and adolsecense, uncertain of what her emotions are, unable to label her feelings as love, or to know whether she loves him as a man, a father-figure, a friend, an idol, or a mixture of them all.

I won't say anymore or it will spoil the book and the surprises it throws at you, but the narrative slowly sucks you (rather like the victims claimed by old Mother in the river) into deeper, darker and muddier waters, resulting in violence, death and tragedy. Even the redemptive ending cannot really take away the bitter taste in your mouth at the end...but nevertheless, a brilliant book.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars got on my nerves
I read the lollypop shoes and really loved it because it was different to anything else.
so I bought this book in the hope this one would be equally as good, the food aspect... Read more
Published 9 days ago by Mrs. K. Alford
5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Quarters of up the Orange
It was everything I like in a book: intrigue, mystery, mayhem, laughter & most of all, love. A good read.
Published 28 days ago by Brenda Laidlaw
4.0 out of 5 stars Five Quarters of the Orange
Another wonderful book by Joanne Harris.
Set again in the same region as Chocolat and Blackberry Wine we are taken back to it during the German occupation in WW2. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Adele204
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great read
Joanne Harris is such an amazing writer. She depicts sight, sound, smell and touch as well as emotions in a way that paints them in the mind's eye.
Published 2 months ago by Lesley Goodwin
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Loved this book, compelling story well written as you would expect from Joanne Harris. I have read all her books and this is one of my favourites along with Blackberry Wine. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jen 39
3.0 out of 5 stars incisive psychological thriller
I very much felt more hooked by this book then by The Lollipop Shoes.

I admire Harris' deep probing eyes into the human soul, knowing the darkness of everyday folk's... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Le Tigre
5.0 out of 5 stars Great novel, so hard to put down.
One of the best novels I have read for some while. I enjoyed it so much I bought further copies for friends for Christmas.
Published 4 months ago by Christine Gow
5.0 out of 5 stars Really good book
Loved this book. It was a really good read set in the war. I would recommend it to others I could not put it down.
Published 4 months ago by vanessa riches
4.0 out of 5 stars Joanne Harris intrigues again.
I prefer this book to some of her more gentle reads. The sharpness of it goes with the title!
It raises questions about culpability.
Is good on food.
Published 5 months ago by ShirleyMary
5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing
Certainly a mysterious title. Excellent plot. Grabs you as it unfolds. Set in France as so many of JH novels. Very enjoyable
Published 5 months ago by L P Bilton
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