My review of Chocolat, by Joanne Harris

Chocolat

by Joanne Harris

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I gained kilos reading this book (is that what they call a spoiler alert?).

Chocolat topped the Sunday Times bestseller list and won the 2000 Creative Freedom Award, 2001 Whittaker Gold Award and 2012 Whittaker Platinum Award. It was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and 2001 Scripter Award. This novel's raging success encouraged Harris to write its sequels The Lollipop Shoes and Peaches for Monsieur le Curé.

Chocolat's big screen adaptation, starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche, was nominated for eight BAFTAs and five Oscars. Like most books whose screen adaptions I saw first, this was slightly different to its onscreen counterpart, but we have to remember always that the book came first (i.e. it's often ultimately not the book but the film we should question). Nevertheless, I found the similarities greater than the differences, loving film and novel equally.

Synopsised as 'a darkly magical modern folktale centred on a chocolate shop owner, Vianne Rocher', Joanne Harris's evocative, sensuous pros has us drooling for, almost able to smell, the irresistible confection at the heart of the title. The characters are richly yet humbly drawn. We see inside many heads, examining closely the cross section of universal human issues affecting this beautiful township's residents.

Major themes addressed in much of Harris' literary work include the mother-child relationship, food having certain emotive quality and magic and horror hidden in ordinary things. Her works are influenced by Grimms’ Fairy Tales and Norse mythology. Unsurprisingly, she has been awarded several honorary doctorates for her extraordinary contribution to English literature.

Chocolat to me reads like the classic storytelling some were fortunate to have read to us as children. Each page of text turned appears simply yet charmingly formed, as if to pull no punches. Sensing no hidden tricks, we soon into the tale trust this author, readily following her along the delicious winding path she leads us down.

I closed the last page feeling satiated, pacified, optimistic - as I do after eating chocolate. A rare, traditional-style read that warmed the cockles of my heart.