Five Quarters of the Orange
By Joanne Harris“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 Périgord truffle, large as a tennis ball, suspended in sunflower oil, that, when uncorked, still releases the rich dank perfume of the forest floor.“
Although the main part of the story takes place in Les Laveuses, a French village occupied by the Germans during World War II, it is not just another war novel. In addition to exposing the ugliness of war from the viewpoint of three neglected children, it is also a mystery and a story of revenge, sexuality and suspense.
First we meet Framboise Dartigan, a crabby old lady recalling the days of her childhood, which happened to coincide with the German Occupation. Their father was killed in World War II, and their mother was always secretive and troubled. The Dartigan-children, (9-year-old Framboise, 14-year-old Cassis and 12-year-old Reine-Claude) are drawn to the neighbouring town of Anger, teaming with Nazis. The children are naturally curious and start talking to a certain German soldier, Tomas Leibnitz, trading secrets about their neighbours in exchange for magazines, sweets and cigarettes. It provides a distraction from their grim home life.
The children’s mother, Mirabella, suffers from intense migraines and violent blackouts and is often bedridden for days. Framboise recalls these nightmarish days with her mother all through the novel. Prior to her terrible migraines, her mother thinks she smells oranges. This is something that Framboise cunningly uses to her advantage. She procures oranges from Tomas and secretes the peel around the house. The scent convinces her mother that she is about to have one of her spells. She takes morphine tablets and takes to her bed, thus leaving the children to their own devices for hours on end. At one time Framboise takes revenge on her mother by planting a cut-up orange near the stove so that the scent fills the house.
We also hear about the local superstition of Old Mother. Old Mother is an ancient pike living in the Loire River. If you catch her she will grant you a wish, but if she catches your eye, you or someone you love will soon die. Framboise takes it upon herself to catch Old Mother. Her determination to do so sets off a chain of events that lead to tragedy.
Another event that stands out is when Framboise nets a dozen snakes, crushes their skulls and leaves them to rot on the riverbanks, after a village girl has been bitten and killed by a venomous snake.
There is also talk of a scandal. A scandal so flagrant that when Framboise returns to her childhood village after an absence of 50 years, she disguises her identity. Through flashbacks it is gradually revealed that the German soldier, Tomas, was the lover of Framboise’s mother. This family secret can be found in her mother's old recipe book, written in between the recipes, sometimes in illegible handwriting and sometimes short paragraphs that do not always make sense. The scandal is also the reason why her family was forced to leave the village 50 years ago.
It is very often only in retrospect that you can really understand the things that happened in your childhood. As a child everything seems either black or white and it can be hard to put things into perspective. To me this is very much what the story is about. From an adult perspective it is also easier for Framboise to understand her mother's side of the story and why she did what she did. To be able to look ahead one must learn to understand the past and let the past remain the past, trying to forgive those that did you wrong.
posted by Mumandwife at 10:07 pm
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