Reading matters

'Holy Fools' by Joanne Harris

Fiction - hardback; Doubleday; 430 pages; 2003

I was looking forward to Joanne Harris's latest fare so much I went out and bought Holy Fools as a full-price hardcover, something I've never done before. But I figured the enjoyment I'd get from her newest fiction would be well worth the £15 price tag. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

This book was incredibly disappointing. It took me a very long time to read, which is uncharacteristic of my past experiences with Harris's novels — normally I whizz through them at lightening-fast pace, enjoying every moment.

By comparison Holy Fools was, at times, mind-numbingly dull. This may sound harsh, but I did try very much to like this book. On the surface it had everything going for it: an "exotic" setting (a remote abbey on a French island), an interesting historical backdrop (17th century France during a time of great political upheaval) and inspired themes (religious dogma versus witchcraft). But this was merely window dressing; scratch the surface and there was little underneath.

The characterisation resorts to cheap stereotypes and the plot was virtually nonexistent. The tension between the protagonist — Juliette, a one-time circus performer who takes refuge in the abbey with her young child — and Guy LeMerle — her ex-lover now turned charlatan priest— is weak and uninspired. I kept waiting for the story to go somewhere, for the characters to develop and grow, but this did not eventuate.

Harris may have built a reputation as a successful author, one of the first in recent times to get the "literary novel" into the bestseller lists, but Holy Fools is a disappointing edition to her captivating "series" of French books.

'Coastliners' by Joanne Harris

Fiction - hardback; Doubleday; 479 pages; 2002

Harris's thematic explorations of the world of chocolate in Chocolat, wine-making in Blackberry Wine and French crepes and other baked treats in Five Quarters of the Orange have earned her a loyal following of culinary-loving readers. Such readers will, therefore, find Harris’s latest novel, Coastliners, a somewhat surprising departure from the norm.

'Five Quarters of the Orange' by Joanne Harris

Fiction - paperback; Black Swan; 363 pages; 2002

Reading a Joanne Harris book is like catching up with an old friend -- enjoyable and comfortable. Five Quarters of the Orange is no exception.

Building on from her thematic explorations of the world of chocolate in Chocolat and wine-making in Blackberry Wine, this novel serves up more delicious and mouth-watering descriptions of food and baking set in a French creperie by the River Loire.

The narrator, an elderly French woman called Framboise, recalls her childhood growing up under the shadow of Nazi occupation. The experience in which her mother, an ill-tempered woman prone to migraines, is singled out as a collaborator, has forced Framboise to reinvent her past. But now this dark history, so carefully hidden, could be exposed by her nephew and his profiteering journalist wife who have their eye on their grandmother's recipe book, now in Framboise's possession.

Wonderfully written, seamlessly weaving the past with the present, and capturing so vividly wartime life and childhood adventure, this is a highly recommended read.