Peaches for Monsieur le Curé

Peaches for Monsieur le Curé
  - Joanne Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I never got around to writing reviews for ‘Chocolat’ and ‘The Lollipop Shoes’ (also known as ‘The Girl With No Shadow’) as I had planned to. I read both of these at the very beginning of this year, Chocolat being a reread. I deliberately didn’t pick up the third book immediately, and before I knew, it became a large gap. I finally read the third book, ‘Peaches for Monsieur le Cure’ this weekend, finishing it over almost one night and part of a day.

In the meanwhile, I had read two other books by Joanne Harris, and though both were very well written, engaging stories which I loved, they were quite different in tone (which shows what a wonderful story teller she is). With Peaches, it was great to return back to the enticing atmosphere of Chocolat, with spunky and charming Vianne Rocher.

Chronologically, The Lollipop Shoes follows Chocolat, and it is a progression on the story, in terms of timeline, and the significant events that intervene (addition of Rosette, and then Roux, to the family, Vianne setting up a new shop in Paris). Though it’s very dark and subversive theme makes it somewhat different in tone. In Peaches, we return to the familiar setting of Lansquenet, and are told the story in the dual voices of Vianne and Father Reynaud; in this sense, it feels closer to, and more like a sequel of Chocolat.

The story starts with Vianne receiving a posthumous letter from her old friend Armande, requesting her to visit Lansquenet once again, since the town needs her help, but the people are not aware of this. With great reluctance and persistent doubts, she arrives there with her daughters. She finds the town in a great tension between the older inhabitants and newly arrived Muslim immigrants, who now constitute a significant size of the town’s population. In a parallel with Chocolat, where she arrives in the town at the beginning of Lent, this time she reaches there at the beginning of Ramadan. Her nemesis from the earlier book, Father Reynaud is in disgrace, accused of burning down a Muslim girls’ school.

What is commendable is her courage in taking up theme of such a controversial nature, especially in current times, and creating a credible, empathetic story out of it. It takes a look at cultural differences between the two communities, in an objective manner for most part. However, the conflicts it explores are universal – tradition vs modernism, old vs youth, orthodoxy vs liberalism, resentment against outsiders. The themes such as differences, tolerance, sense of belonging, community, are a concern of every human being. In her efforts to restore peace in the community, Vianne tries to get to the root of the matter, and we get to see how little prejudices and misunderstandings can take the shape of a huge conflict, which takes very little to fuel up – this is usually how riots erupt, and we know it too well in our part of the world. It also illustrates how easy it to deceive people, particularly when fanaticism or ignorance come into play.

Vianne is as charming as ever - the flawed, yet empathetic character, who appears vivacious and undefeatable to outsiders, but suffers from restlessness and uncertainty. Father Reynaud’s is the character that has really evolved in this book, and is portrayed with great nuance. He considers himself to be changed much, but as readers we get to see that it is not really so - he has become a little more tolerant, but it is in accepting his vulnerability and seeking help, that he becomes very likeable. He understands a little, though does not fully comprehend, his shortcomings, but works with the best intentions for the community at his heart.

The story itself was very engaging, somewhat in the vein of a suspense thriller, delivering some nice twists, including one minor and one major, that took me altogether by surprise. It keeps a good pace, but retains enough details to bring alive the atmosphere.

As in the preceding books, the author has beautifully captured the landscape and essence of a small riverside town in France. The imagery is vivid, with evocative descriptions of sights and sounds and smells, that gives me a feeling of delight with a little twinge of sadness, that makes it all the more alluring. The food still plays an important part here, though now the Moroccan cuisine is added to the French. However, I really missed the preparations of Vianne’s concoctions, which created the magical environment that was a great delight in the previous two books. In fact, I would say that I was disappointed by this omission, as it steered the story from magical realism towards typical fiction. This book also doesn’t add much to Vianne’s story – not much has changed in her life since the previous book, and not much changes for her through this one, even though she helps the town out of a particularly difficult time. A must read, if you loved Chocolat, though I felt it didn’t quite recreate the magic of the previous two.

Questions/Inconsistencies - MAY HAVE SPOILERS

I found it a little ironic that in case of the Catholic community, the old and more conservative thinking of Father Reynaud was emphasized with, and prevailed in the end, while in the case of Muslim community the liberal thinking of old imam was favored against the orthodox views of his son. While I fully support the progressive viewpoint of the latter, I don’t understand why the modern ways of the new priest were undesirable.

In Chocolat, it seemed that only those with “sight” can see Pantoufle – Anouk’s special rabbit. Appeared to be the case in The Lollipop Shoes as well. However, here, depending on circumstances, anyone can see Pantoufle, and particularly Bam.

I found Jean-Pauls’ sudden and complete change of heart totally unconvincing – it is inconceivable that a foul-mouth bad-tempered person can suddenly become calm and considerate. Worse still, it leaves Josephine stuck once again with her abusive husband, who she had wanted to leave for several years, especially when she had just found the courage to do so, and had discovered a mutual connection with someone else.