Five Quarters Of The Orange (Paragon Softcover Large Print Books)

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I also felt that the author could have done so much more with the the material she used for her story. Ms. Harris's book concerns, in part, the relationships between a young German soldier and some French children and their mother in occupied France during WWII. Given the monstrosity of the Nazi regime, coupled with the fact that there were decent Germans and varying degrees of complicity in the Nazi monstrosity among Germans, I felt some kind of conflict in that arena was warranted. I also thought she could have done more with the morality of forming relationships with the enemy. Is it immoral, and if so, is morality in that context purely based on citizenship? Is it moral, and if so, does that mean we should disregard citizenship (not to mention the horrible war crimes of the Nazis)?

I highly recommend Five Quarters of the Orange, and I’ll be the first in line to see the movie. Harris is a talented storyteller accurately capturing the cruelty and naivete of children, the paranoia of wartime, and the patience of love. I give Five Quarters of the Orange a delicious 4 out of 5 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. Five Quarters is also a story about childhood. As an ex-teacher and mother of a young child I find it easier perhaps to visualize the darker side of childhood, the occasional strangeness which exists in even the most well-behaved and affectionate of our children. Children are far more complex creatures than the Victorian ideal would have us believe; and the children of Five Quarters are neither well-behaved nor affectionate, but have evolved a system of behaviour which has little to do with that of the adults around them, with survival their main priority, and power their only currency. Framboise especially has had to grow up fast. Having lost her father at such an early age that little remains of him in her memory, believing herself unloved by her undemonstrative mother, in constant conflict with her siblings, she has developed a greater cynicism than her years would suggest, and a more certain understanding of the weaknesses of others. Her cruelty against her mother is terribly refined and entirely conscious, and yet on other levels Framboise is very naïve and vulnerable, wanting to love and be loved. It is this vulnerability which inevitably draws her to Tomas leibnitz. He becomes a focus for Framboise’s emergent – and hitherto unconscious – sexuality as well as a fantasy father-figure for all three children. More importantly, perhaps, he plays the role of intermediary between the adult world and that of the children; joining in their games, vindicating their actions and putting the seal of authority on their betrayals.

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Framboise is nine years old during the events that take place in WWII and for me this just didn’t work. She is very precocious in her actions, especially when she wages a war of continual manipulation of her mother. I really don’t think that any 9 year old would have been able to carry this off and her actions and thoughts were more suited to someone say of about 13 or 14. Framboise falls the most for Liebwitz. By, in fact, actually falling in love with him. Which leads to the event that has remained hidden for years, decades, in the family. The event that changed each of their lives forever. When he tells young Framboise that he can no longer see her, likely ever again, she cries, imploring that this not be so. When he refuses her pleas, she desperately convinces him to swim out to a dangerous area of the lake, simply to spend more time with him. He is caught in a root underwater and drowns. The three of them, Cassis, Reinette, and Framboise, surreptitiously make the body disappear, and never discuss the incident again. Their mother, despite showing no real love for them their entire lives, covers up for them when she finds out. They never know until present day that she even knew. The novels of Joanne Harris are a literary feast for the senses. Five Quarters of the Orange represents Harris's most complex and sophisticated work yet -- a novel in which darkness and fierce joy come together to create an unforgettable story. My sour cherry liqueur is especially popular, though I feel a little guilty that I cannot remember the cherry's name. The secret is to leave the stones in. Layer cherries and sugar one on the other in a widemouthed glass jar, covering each layer gradually with clear spirit (kirsch is best, but you can use vodka or even Armagnac) up to half the jar's capacity. Top up with spirit and wait. Every month, turn the jar carefully to release any accumulated sugar. In three years' time the spirit has bled the cherries white, itself stained deep red now, penetrating even to the stone and the tiny almond inside it, becoming pungent, evocative, a scent of autumn past. Serve in tiny liqueur glasses, with a spoon to scoop out the cherry, and leave it in the mouth until the macerated fruit dissolves under the tongue. Pierce the stone with the point of a tooth to release the liqueur trapped inside and leave it for along time in the mouth, playing it with the tip of the tongue, rolling it under, over, like a single prayer bead. Try to remember the time of its ripening, that summer, that hot autumn, the time the well ran dry, the time we had the wasp's nests, time past, lost, found again in the hard place at the heart of the fruit...” Framboise and her siblings are all named after fruit. Try making your own raspberry liqueur at home using this simple recipe.

Revolutionary France had a history of naming children after garden produce, although nowadays French laws on naming chidren are quite strict. Why do you think Mirabelle named her children as she did? How did this choice affect the way she was seen in the community? For Five Quarters is a novel about betrayal; intimate betrayals, unspoken betrayals, betrayals within the family, the wider community and out into war-torn France. For Framboise this "ripple effect" goes on through the years, gaining momentum and widening its circle all the time. An appropriate image in a story where the symbolic presence of Old Mother, the terrible, quasi-mythic old river pike, is never far away. For me she represents the unspeakable fears of childhood; the fear of death and sexuality, the twin Freudian monsters of the subconscious. The scent convinces her mother that she is about to have one of her spells, she takes morphine tablets, and takes to her bed, Food was her nostalgia, her celebration, its nurture and preparation the sole outlet for her creativity" (pg 4). Framboise said this about her mother's relationship with food. Discuss the many different roles food plays in Framboise's life. A dark, gripping tale of how smell leads to tragedy and murder. Harris's vividly sensual account of a nine-year-olds loves, loyalties and misunderstandings is a powerful and haunting story of childhood betrayal Good Housekeeping

Book Summary

The youngest of three, she is most like her mother in spirit. She is defiant, secretive, independent, and tough, often taking the lead with her siblings. She has the maturity and the ruthlessness of a much older child and is used to acting on her own. She is not above lying, stealing or otherwise breaking the rules to get what she wants, and shows as little affection towards her mother as her mother shows to her. She is, however, more sensitive than she would first appear. She barely remembers her father, but misses his influence terribly. This is what initially draws her to the young Tomas Leibniz, who becomes a father-substitute, best friend and elder brother-figure all in one. In a strange contradiction of her own nature, the mother is also a superb cook: the delicious meals she prepares would make a voluptuary blush -- an irony, and an enigma. How does one gather such fruits, (quite literally) when the rest of Europe is starving? This rang something of a false note -- but perhaps the juxtaposition suggests that out of rotten fruit can spring the most wondrous delicacies? Still ... Harris indulges her love of rich and mouthwatering descriptive passages, appealing to the senses ... Thoroughly enjoyable Observer Why do you think Framboise returned to Les Laveuses? Was there a part of her that wanted the truth revealed? 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 named after a raspberry liqueur, plies her culinary trade at the cr?perie - and lets her memory play strange games.