Five Quarters of the Orange

Five Quarters of the Orange earns a 2.5. This book is phenomenal, even though the math in the title made Darr cringe. The tale of Framboise Simon is parceled into past and present excerpts that are delicately balanced throughout the novel, which is conveniently divided into five sections. The story is cyclical, young grow old and those that are old experience rebirths, old loves die and new loves are found, truth turns to deceit and deceit turns to truth - all of this while the seasons change, themselves slaves to the natural cycle of life. The prose is a veritable feast for the eyes with imagery that incites a range of emotions and often, particularly during parts where cooking and food is discussed, excites the palate.

An older Framboise returns to the beloved countryside of her youth cloaked in a new name. What made her flee and caused her to reappear years later is a large part of the mystery contained on the pages within. At the center of it all are the details of Framboise's ninth year - the war and German occupation, her infatuation for a soldier on the wrong side, the struggle for control, her mother's strange aversion to oranges, a recipe book filled with secrets to be discovered, a weird language of reversed words, nonsense prefixes and suffixes and inverted syllables (e.g., "Ini tnawini inoti plainexini." = "I want to explain."), and an elusive fish who's capture is believed to grant wishes.