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    Five Quarters of the Orange: A Novel
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    Five Quarters of the Orange: A Novel
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    Five Quarters of the Orange: A Novel
    Ebook389 pages6 hours

    Five Quarters of the Orange: A Novel

    By Joanne Harris

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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. . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061836701
    Unavailable
    Five Quarters of the Orange: A Novel
    Author

    Joanne Harris

    Joanne Harris is the author of seven previous novels—Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange, Coastliners, Holy Fools, Sleep, Pale Sister, and Gentlemen & Players; a short story collection, Jigs & Reels; and two cookbook/memoirs, My French Kitchen and The French Market. Half French and half British, she lives in England.

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    Reviews for Five Quarters of the Orange

    4/5

    78 ratings55 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Joanne Harris' masterpiece; bittersweet but excellent
    • 4/5
      This is the story of a woman (Framboise) who owns a restaurant (of course, Joanne Harris and her food books!) in France who was a young girl during WWII and when the German soldiers were patrolling the area. The premise of the story seems to be that the girl's mother gave information to the soldiers and was ran out of the village in shame. Framboise went back to the village as an older woman (with a different last name) and kept her identity a secret and opened a very successful restaurant. It flashes back and forth from current times to when she was a little girl - and we learn more and more about the truth of the story. love reading books set in WWII and this one has really hit the spot for me.This book really moved me - I think many of us can remember back to when we were young and to that summer when our lives completely changed forever. How strong young love is and feels - and how that connection and memory can truly last into adulthood. Especially when the end of that relationship is so terribly tragic.
    • 5/5
      Yet another excellent book by one of my favourite authors. The story of Framboise and her family, the book flits backwards and forwards between present day and wwii France.
    • 5/5
      I would say I appreciated this book more than enjoyed it. It was too dark to be enjoyable but it is a gem of a story, unfolding slowly, layer by layer, to reveal itself.
    • 3/5
      By the author of Chocolat, this book is probably better written and has more depth. On the down side, it's pretty dark and it's difficult to be sympathetic to the cold characters. Still, the book mesmerized me even though it was troubling.
    • 4/5
      My first book by this author. I love her writing style! I don't normally read abt France or WWII but this book was exceptional!The story builds slowly with small hints of what may come.The last 40 pages were page turners,impossible to put down. Can't wait to read Coastliners!
    • 2/5
      A little village on the Loire is the setting of the story. A war widow tends to her farm and her three children, while writing recipes and the details of a troubled life.

      I loved the atmospheric setting, the complex relations between the villagers and the invading Germans. The blurring of the lines of propriety and morality during times of war, and the mixed loyalties. On another level, though, the secret and the buildup to it became too predictable towards the end. So the novel did not have the interesting plots of her previous work. But for a short book it is worth the time, if only for the description of food.
    • 3/5
      Mother dies and farm on Loire is inherited.World War Ii leads to strange German collaboration, the orange at the heart of migraines, French Resistance,a horrific massacre, and spying. Intriguing plot; characters not so much...Stil a mystery of how the truths came to be...
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this story about life in occupied rural France during World War II. The writing is excellent...giving hints of deeper truths that are revealed at the end; and evoking the atmosphere of the setting so well. The characters are complex and nuanced. This is a story about how difficult it is to know the truth, about relationships, and about the consequences of war beyond the battlefields.
    • 4/5
      Dieses Buch habe ich spontan bei einem Basar ergattert. Ich kannte die Autorin bereits (ja genau, von Chocolat), hatte aber speziell von diesem Titel noch nichts gehört. Ich beschloss, mich überraschen zu lassen und habe es nicht bereut.Die Geschichte beschreibt die Ereignisse eines Sommers in einem französischen Dorf während des 2. Weltkrieges aus der Sicht von Framboise Dartigen. Framboise ist an ihren Heimatort zurückgekehrt und eröffnet dort unerkannt eine kleine Creperie. Wieso sie ihre Identität geheim hält und aus welchen Gründen ihre Familie in jenem schicksalhaften Sommer fliehen musste, wird nach und nach in Rückblenden enthüllt. Zudem muss Framboise in der Gegenwart um ihr Geschäft bangen, als ihr Bruder Anspruch auf die ihr von der Mutter vererbten Rezepte erhebt.Obwohl die Geschichte manchmal sperrig wirkt, hat sie mich von Anfang an in ihren Bann gezogen. Mag sein, dass dies vor allem bei den Rückblenden der Fall ist, schließlich war Framboise damals noch ein Mädchen und dementsprechend kindlich oder ungeschliffen wirken manche Beschreibungen. Beide Erzählstränge aber - in der Gegenwart und in der Vergangenheit - bleiben spannend bis zum Schluss, an dem sich alles wie bei einem Puzzle zusammenfügt.
    • 5/5
      Framboise, a middle-aged widow, returns to the town on the Loire where she spent the first decade of her life. During the German occupation in World War II, Framboise, her older brother and sister, and their mother were involved in an event so terrible that they fled the town. Framboise's mother has died in the intervening decades. She left an album filled with her recipes and with seemingly random notes. Framboise returns to the town and restores the family's old farmhouse which she bought from her brother. She supports herself by opening a cafe where she serves her mother's recipes. The life she has built depends on keeping her real identity secret. Framboise is known by her married name, and she looks nothing like the child she was when the family left. A greedy nephew threatens to dig up the secrets that Framboise has tried so hard to keep.This book was longlisted for the Orange Prize and I can see why it didn't make it onto the shortlist. It doesn't have the weight that judges of literary prizes would expect. However, it does have the right ingredients to transport readers to another time and place and hold them spellbound until the end. I read this book in a day. I couldn't sleep until I had finished it.It's not really a mystery. Framboise knows the secret at the heart of the book. It's no mystery to her. She just won't give the secret up easily. It's part coming of age, as Framboise remembers events from her 10th year. It's part family drama, exploring sibling dynamics and the conflict between Framboise and her difficult mother. It's part historical fiction, dealing with the German occupation of France in World War II. There's even a little romance sprinkled in the book. The descriptions of French farm cuisine, the smells and sounds of summer, and the feel of the river delight the senses. It's a rich, rewarding reading experience that I highly recommend.
    • 5/5
      8 of 75 for 2015. Not sure when I read this the first time, must have been shortly after it came out in 2001, but I feel in love with the story and the author at that time. It was my first Joanne Harris book, and since then I've read many more works by this author probably best known for Chocolat which was made into a movie staring Juliette Binoche with help from Johnny Depp, Alfred Molina, Dame Judy Dench, and many, many more. In Five Quarters of the Orange, Harris explores the life of an older woman who grew up much too fast during the Nazi Occupation of northern and western France. The story line skips back and forth from the present to the past as we watch a life fall apart and then be redeemed by its secrets. For anyone interested in life in provincial France, or life under the occupation, this book is a must read.
    • 4/5
      A captivating story, not because it's pleasant but because of the psychological truth of it and the writing approach which consistently teases the reader with hints of the dark truth. It is also a sociological look at the conflicts and stresses of living in an occupied country (France during WWII).
    • 5/5
      An inspirational book about children and their mothers, sadness and hope, mistakes and learning from them. I really enjoyed this book and Harris is fast becoming a favorite author.
    • 4/5
      This is an incredibly artful, and beautifully written, work of historical fiction. Centered around WWII, and moving gracefully between the present and the past, the work looks over a half century of time in the terms of one woman, her siblings, and the undeniable impact of single events and memories from the past. Admittedly, for me, the book took quite some time to become engaging--even though the narrator's voice was well written as both a child and as an adult, I had a hard time believing in her fully. It may be that her motivations weren't clear enough, or that I needed more context, but either way, I simply couldn't connect with her or her story enough to get really invested in the book--she felt too artificial, or too perfectly created, perhaps. By 2/3rds of the way through the book, I was truly engaged and interested in the plot, but I never did grow to believe in the characters as fully formed entities. As a result, the book likely isn't one I'll remember for the long term or be all that likely to pass on. If you're a big fan of historical fiction, this might very well be right up your alley, though.Recommended for readers interested in literary historical fiction related to WWII, or fiction that gracefully moves between two drastically different time periods.
    • 4/5
      Framboise Dartigan is the proprietess of a small town café in France. She is now 60 years old and back on her family farm, using her mother’s recipes; the only thing left to her belonging to her mother, to cook for the café and make preserves to sell. While reading through the recipe book/journal she recalls her life as a child during World War II.

      Although the subject matter was difficult at times, Ms. Harris brought occupied France to life by describing it through the eyes of a child. Despite the ugliness of war the book has its share of whimsy, romance and comedy, as does life, not matter how hard the times. The writing was beautiful and such a pleasure to read.
    • 5/5
      An interesting book at so many levels. The story of a mother and her three children during occupied France during WWII, beautifully and horrifyingly written. The painful relationships of the family members, the longings touched by a Nazi officer, the fear and its release. I found it very moving.
    • 3/5
      This is a well written, but really depressing book. If you have dysfunction in your family this book will make it seem like a walk in the park.

      It is a WW2 story about survival and the difficult choices that people make to survive. It is also about trust and mistrust and how mistrust can turn deadly.
    • 4/5
      This is the first of Joanne Harris' books I've read, but I can see why she's so popular, it sucks you in and manages to make you care about what happening and why, even when the lead character isn't perhaps the most likable of people. It's set in WW2 in a village in France, and in the same village 55 (ish) years later, when the 9 yr old child has returned to the farm of her childhood. Her story now is one of a threatened security, the threat being her own past and comes from her nephew & his niece. these are the villains, in case you needed the hint. In some ways it's rather traumatic, the events of the past are, individually maybe unpleasant, but a concatenation of circumstances means that they take on horrific consequences and build up like an avalanche such that soon things are out of control of any who contributed. It's told from Framboise's memories, and her mother's jottings in her recipe book with some contributions from her childhood friend - who stand by her now. There's love and loss and all sorts mixed up here and the moral might be that you can;t live a lie, even if telling the truth might seem to be the worst thing.A good read, although i'd have liked Yannick, Laure & Luc to have been tidied up rather than just shunted stage left once they'd fulfilled their roles as catalyst. i have another of her books next month for book club, so that'll be one to look forward to.
    • 3/5
      I read this a long time ago, and it feels unfair to give it a star rating because I remember so little of it apart from the atmosphere.

      I liked the characterisation -- that's a big reason for me reading Joanne Harris' books in the first place. I read it when I was a young adult and I much preferred Chocolat but I still think it's really cool that I was able to read and enjoy this book at 14 or 15.

      Joanne Harris' books deal a lot with memory and emotion and how certain characters' legacies and emotions influence other people, and I think this book is no different. She had quite a complex and layered story. I would have to read it again to immerse myself in the story (and I would like to) but I remember liking this book and thinking it was a solid read.
    • 3/5
      Ah! Something slightly different from Joanne Harris. The theme of mothers and daughters continues, and the theme of food also continues, but they're the background to a story set during the second world war, and the things that happen during it in an otherwise sleepy town in France. It's somewhat slow to start, with sly little references to the bigger story to let you know that something is coming.

      It all comes together nicely, and one of the most shocking, painful scenes is well written -- full of hate and confusion and horror, just as it should be.

      Easy to read, but somewhat less indulgent than a lot of Joanne Harris' other work. There is redemption at the end, and a happy ending, but it's not a fix it for everyone.
    • 4/5
      Delicious, sumptuous, satisfying historical fiction. I hadn't read anything by Joanne Harris before, although I loved the movie "Chocolat"... this certainly won't be her last novel that I lose myself in.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to like this book, the woman sounded like a strong character. There was some good writing in some points and poor writing in others. I had to push to get through it and in the end there wasn't much enjoyable about it.
    • 4/5
      When her mother passes, Framboise Simon takes her inheritance, a book of family recipes, and heads back to her childhood home, her purpose being to reconcile the horrors of past events with her present day life. Set in a French Village before and after WWII, this is a heartrending story of the very human desire to make sense of even the most senseless events in our lives. Joanne Harris is an amazing writer. I can’t imagine that any of her books would disappoint.
    • 5/5
      Framboise Dartingen moves back to the village in which she grew up using a different name and opens a cafe, using the recipes she inherited from her mother. Much of the book describes growing up in the French village during World War II under Nazi occupation. It's also a story of mothers and daughters. It's a "delicious" book from the poetic prose to the mouth-watering descriptions of the food.
    • 3/5
      What attracts me to Harris's work is her prose. It provokes strong reactions. I find myself thinking on it days after I've finished, little phrases rolling around my mind. Not to mention the food! Everything sounds terribly interesting and makes me want to try my hand at French cooking.
    • 5/5
      My all time favorite. Set in modern France,part of th ebook flashes back to World War II.Absolutely fascinating! Her best in my view.Even better than Chocolat.
    • 4/5
      I was absolutely fascinated by this book. Strange as I did not care for her book Chocolat very much at all. But this book has almost all of the elements that I look for in a but perfect read. A little dark, a little light; some drama, some playfulness; strong characters, weaker characters who can be manipulated, a heart break, a love story; I think you get my drift. This story takes place in war time France and brings to a village a woman, who spent half of her childhood here under a different name. There are mysteries and reasons why she does not wish the villagers to remember her or her family from her early years here. The story goes back and forth to her youth with her mother and 2 siblings and then to the current day. It is told in the first person of the woman and then of the young girl of her childhood. It is a great story and is well written. I am sure that I will read it again one day. I gave it 4 stars.
    • 4/5
      Sixty-five-year-old widow Framboise Dartigen returns, under an assumed name, to the French village where she spent her childhood. Having inherited her mother's gift for cooking, she opens a cafe. The novel intertwines this present day story with memories of her childhood, when the village was under Nazi occupation. In return for chocolate and movie magazines, Framboise and her brother and sister collaborated with a young German soldier, Tomas. This dangerous relationship, and Framboise's infatuation with Tomas, provided the catalyst for events that would soon tear the village apart.Like William Trevor, Harris is good at exploring the nature of small, rural societies where everyone knows everyone else, and their business. Even though Framboise was just a child when she left the village, she fears that she will be judged harshly by the villagers who remember the old days, hence the assumed name. But in spite of the fear of being 'found out', she feels she must live here, and try to unravel the secrets of her mother's journal, a mish-mash of recipes mixed with enigmatic comments, and 'disguised' entries written in a kind of Pig Latin.She has one ally from the old days, her old friend Paul, who supports Framboise when a young man sets up a snack van in overt competition with her cafe, providing the novel with some comic relief. Framboise must also come to terms with the complicated relationship she had with her mother, which affects the way she relates to her own two daughters.This is a darker novel than Chocolat and Harris does a good job of showing the reality of occupation through the eyes of children. For them, the war seems a long way away, and the trading of secrets for little black market luxuries is treated almost like a game. This is a finely-balanced, non-judgemental novel, in which many of the characters are unlikeable to varying degrees, but treated with understanding. 'Collaborator' is a highly emotive word, but Harris shows that it wasn't quite a case of 'us' versus 'them', or 'good' versus 'evil' - the reality was rather more complicated and messy, and even mundane. [Feb 2009]
    • 5/5
      I found this book to be a very engrossing read. Set in a small French town, the protagonist, Framboise Simon refects on her past life as a nine year old farm girl(during World War II) and her present life as a sixty five extremely bitter woman.I was fascinating with the character development in this story, Framboise (Boise) was an extremely cruel child and hateful older woman. Although the character never had any redeeming qualities, I wanted to know her story. I wanted to know about each family member's secrets, what happened with the German soldier, and most importantly, what happened the summer of Boise's ninth year.Add the many food references to this wonderful book and it makes for an excellent read.