TOS Assignment 2 : Book Review - 'Chocolat'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolat

Have you ever wondered how powerful chocolate can be? It can certainly tantalize your taste buds, but it can also create rifts and bridge gaps between people. Joanne Harris' 'Chocolat' explores the magic of chocolate through the eyes of the mysterious Vianne Rocher, in the quaint little French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes.

Vianne is extraordinary. She reads cards and people, has unusually accurate intuitive powers and moves nomadically around the world, along with her daughter Anouk, 'whenever the wind changes'.

Vianne and Anouk chance upon the village of Lansquenet on the day of the carnival. It is the kind of place that vanishes in the blink of an eye, while one buzzes across the highway. With a population of merely two hundred, it consists of a main street with classic beige, timber houses leading up to the main square. The cobbled square is dominated by the blindingly white church tower, rising high above the band of small shops, bakeries and eateries. The Tannes flows past the back of the village, flanked by sharply divided fields, vineyards and orchards, in between. The description of the village becomes more vivid as the authoress contrasts the pretty site of the country homes with the glumness and melancholy if its inhabitants.

 Vianne rents a small double storey musty house, which used to be a bakery. Along with her daughter, she cleans up the place, paints it and makes it her own. The transformation of space has been described beautifully - one can feel the space change from a cold and musty set of rooms, to a warm and welcoming one, much like Vianne herself. She opens a Chocolaterie 'La Celeste Praline' on the ground floor and then things start to change. It becomes a place for secrets to be told, statements to be made, change to happen.

The village priest, however, is extremely wary of Vianne and thinks she's a bad influence as she tempts people to indulge in the sinful, gooey goodness of chocolate, that too in the season of self-denial, Lent. As the days pass, the situation becomes so intense that the priest, along with half the village, starts a campaign called "church not chocolate". The rest of the story is a tussle between the two and no guesses for who wins!

The part of the village described most vividly is the main square. Both the priest and Vianne can see each other from their respective abodes. The chimes of the church tower can be heard really loudly in her house, indicating the close proximity of the church to the chocolaterie, which is ironic as Vianne does not go to church and is quite the social outcast.

Another part of the village appearing many times in the story is the river side, often referred to as Les Mauraud. It has been described as a swampy, greenish-grey strip of land with a rather rotten smell about it. Funnily enough, the children of the village are the happiest playing here. I think it goes to show how they lead stifled lives within the village, just like their families, and come to the riverside for a much needed break.

In fact, many of the misfits in the village, such as the 'witch' Armande Voizin, lived in houses along the riverside, away from the main village.

What is commendable about this book is the style of writing. Quoting from the book : ""That's my house over there." She nodded at one of the river houses, this one in better repair than the rest, freshly white washed and with scarlet germaniums in the window boxes."

This line essentially describes only three features of the house, namely, it sits by the river, its white-washed, and has window boxes with flowers. However when one reads it, one gets a clear image of the house with all its details in place. Speaking for myself, I think of a gable ended sloping roof with black slate tiles, a classic grid window with colorful, louvered wooden shutters and maybe a tiny garden next to it. The point being that the prose is so aptly written, that the gaps are simply filled in by the reader's mind, making it easy to imagine the setting, which may vary from person to person.

Joanne Harris paints the perfect picture of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, which  possesses a timeless quality, so rare in today's world. The sheer quaintness of the setting combined with the warmth of 'La Celeste Praline' make 'Chocolat' a delicious read!  

[Assignment for 'Theory of Settlements'; Date of Submission 06/08/2010]