Five Quarters of the Orange
By Joanne Harris
Perennial, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2002
ISBN: 0060958022
Novel-Literary

Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, MyShelf.Com
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Food is its Inspiration, Not its Essentials

Five Quarters of the Orange is
Possibly the Most Luscious Release of the Year


Taken with the color, scent, taste and delicious sounding French names of food, Joanne Harris uses them as her inspiration for the tastiest of novels. Having said that, I worry that readers might be mislead by the title and all the hoop-la over the food in this novel and in Joanne Harris's previous book called "Chocolat" (many art film aficionados may remember it from its adaptation to the screen.) Everyone is so fascinated by the food in Five Quarters of the Orange that more important aspects of this novel might be ignored.

This book is a fine period piece set in France during the German occupation. It is about history. It is about man's inhumanity to man. It is about pleasurable innocence and its bitter loss. It is about how people sometimes let who they think they are rule their lives and their hearts.

This may easily be one the most satisfying and unsettling releases of the year. Yes, truly bitter sweet. Pungent. Like an orange. And any other number of foods that Harris lingers over in Five Quarters of the Orange.

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