Book Club - May Book
In May we chose The Strawberry Thief a book from one of the speakers at this year Guernsey Literary festival, Joanne Harris. The talk was brilliant. She has such a great sense of humour.
By the way, if you have never heard of the Guernsey Literary Festival you need to check their website. It is one of the highlights of the island’s arts calendar. The festival brings to Guernsey incredible writers and speakers from all over the world. Make sure you check who they will bring for 2022!
The Strawberry thief - Joanne Harris
Our appreciation of the book was enhanced by listening to the author talking of her French background which she drew upon in her portrayal of the role of Catholic Church and priests in rural France. She explained how she was drawn to the idea of the influence of the interloper in a small community: a recurring theme in each of the three novels of the trilogy of which The Strawberry Thief was the final part.
Few of us had read the other 2 books in the trilogy. We felt the novel stood well on its own. There are 3 narrators: Vianne, her daughter, Rosette, and Father Reynard; all of whom are unreliable. The novel begins during Lent, on 10th March and finishes on April 1st - Easter Saturday. This creates a tension between abstinence and self-fulfilment: guilt and confession are recurrent motifs. The Tarot cards: Death/ The Fool/ The Tower/ Change are interwoven in the novel’s structure which begins with the death of Narcisse, develops themes of guilt associated with misinterpretation and suffering and ends with change linked to resurrection of Easter.
We noted powerful women, witch-like characters, dominate the novel. The magic of Vianne’s mantras: Love me/ Feed me/ Free me, we felt reflected her desperate fear of loneliness, and Try me/ Taste me/ Test me embody her as a temptress during Lent when she draws people to the magical recipes she pedals in her chocolaterie.
We thought Vianne came off lightly, as she is arguably the most culpable in Harris’s exploration of dysfunctional parent/child relationships. We identified Morgan, the interloper, who briefly enters the novel, with her magical insights, as a healing force in the community. Vianne, on the other hand, sees her as a malign force - a kind of Pied Piper who threatens to take her daughter, Rosette, away from her. Morgan is a kind of fairy tale figure - the mirrors in her tattoo parlour both evoke the pasts and echo the fears of those who enter her parlour. The wind, with its complex symbolic presence contributes to the novel’s magic.
All in all we enjoyed this book and thought it was meticulously structured. Many were inspired to read the other 2 books in the trilogy.