Books and Cooks Ithaca -- August 2000

Chocolat

Our rating: 3.3 cups of tea!

PEOPLE
Books and Cooks participants, email addresses and homepages where available.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSIONS and RATING SYSTEM
Check out some of the books we've discussed in the past, as well as our rating system and ratings for those books.

RECIPROCITY
There are lots of other book groups out there. On this page find some links to bookgroups we've had e-contact with.

BOOK LINKS
Check out this pile of book-related links.

Discussion date: August 24, 2000

Discussion place: Amanda's Place

Menu: Grilled dinner, and desserts

From Kirkus Reviews , December 15, 1998
A first novel that rather cloyingly describes the transformations that overtake the residents of a small French village when a mysterious stranger and her daughter arrive and open a chocolate shop. The townspeople of Lansquenet live in the present day, but the patterns of their lives were established long before they were born and change very little from year to year. A hamlet straight out of Flaubert, Lansquenet is filled with busybodies who have nothing better to do with their days than spy on one another, until two new arrivals provide fresh grist for the mill. What inspired Vivianne Rocher to move to Lansquenet with her daughter Anouk and to open a chocolate boutique is never explained, but her effect on the populace is profound and immediate: the grim little town and its sniping inhabitants are transformed through the magic of Viviannes confections into an almost surreal assembly of sensualists, each somehow discovering in bonbons the key to happiness. Elderly crones find themselves remembering long- forgotten loves; shy young couples work up the nerve to break the ice. Is this all the result of only chocolate? Or is some more sinister force at work? The local priest suspects the worst, and his suspicions are reinforced by his awareness that Vivianne opened her shop on Shrove Tuesday and thus has been tempting the entire parish from its Lenten austerities for the past six weeks. Now, she has even announced plans for a Chocolate Festival to take place on Easter Sunday itself! Horrified, he hatches a plan to foil her festivities, but God does not always side with the just. Who will win the soul of the town? Premise, prose, and pace all march along capably, but they fail nevertheless to raise the whole above the debilities of heavy symbolism and excruciatingly precious plot.

From Amazon.com, Lisa Gee
Vianne Rocher and her 6-year-old daughter, Anouk, arrive in the small village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes--"a blip on the fast road between Toulouse and Bourdeaux"--in February, during the carnival. Three days later, Vianne opens a luxuriant chocolate shop crammed with the most tempting of confections and offering a mouth-watering variety of hot chocolate drinks. It's Lent, the shop is opposite the church and open on Sundays, and Francis Reynaud, the austere parish priest, is livid.

One by one the locals succumb to Vianne's concoctions. Joanne Harris weaves their secrets and troubles, their loves and desires, into her third novel, with the lightest touch. There's sad, polite Guillame and his dying dog; thieving, beaten-up Joséphine Muscat; schoolchildren who declare it "hypercool" when Vianne says they can help eat the window display--a gingerbread house complete with witch. And there's Armande, still vigorous in her 80s, who can see Anouk's "imaginary" rabbit, Pantoufle, and recognizes Vianne for who she really is. However, certain villagers--including Armande's snobby daughter and Joséphine's violent husband--side with Reynaud. So when Vianne announces a Grand Festival of Chocolate commencing Easter Sunday, it's all-out war: war between church and chocolate, between good and evil, between love and dogma.

Reminiscent of Herman Hesse's short story "Augustus," Chocolat is an utterly delicious novel, coated in the gentlest of magic, which proves--indisputably and without preaching--that soft centers are best.

The Books and Cooks Chocolat Informal Reading Guide
(member-generated questions in no particular order)

• Why was Vianne a "found" child?

• Why did Armande seem to recognize Vianne early in the book? (see p.31)

• Did anything unexpected happen in the book or was the plot wholly spelled out early on?

• Was Reynaud "evil"? Or did he help the town in any way?

• In Mary Poppins the woman changed the man, but in this book she just ran him out of town. Why? (Bonus question: Did she run him out of town?)

• Why did Josephine steal things? Was it necessary to the book or her character?

• What is the significance of Pantoufle?

• Did you identify with any one of the characters in particular? If so, who and why? If not, did this affect your reading of the book?

• Is it believable that so much change could occur over such a short time period (about one month)? Might any of the changes have happened over time without Vianne's influence?

• Did Vianne ever escape the life she and her mother led when she was a child? Did she ever become in control of her life?

This Page Last Revised: November 21, 2000.