The Girl With No Shadow

Harris, Joanne. The Girl With No Shadow. New York: HarperCollins 2007. Print.

First Sentences:

 

It is a relatively little-known fact that, over the course of a single year, about twenty million letters are delivered to the dead. People forget to stop the mail -- those grieving widows and prospective heirs -- and so magazine subscriptions remain uncancelled; distant friends unnotified; library fines unpaid....You can learn a lot from abandoned mail: names, bank details, passwords, e-mail addresses, security codes...A gift, as I said, just waiting for collection. 

Description:

Having enjoyed the film Chocolat with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, I stumbled onto the novel Chocolat by Joanne Harris on which the movie was based. I was surprised to discover that there are three additional books about VianneRocher, chocolatier (chocolate maker) extraordinaire. While I am not usually attracted to books of fantasy and magic, I took the plunge into The Girl With No Shadow, the second in the series, just because I was curious to read what new adventures awaited the heroine and her daughter, Anouk several years after the ending of Chocolat.

Vianne, eleven-year-old Anouk, and four-year-old daughter Rosette, have set up a new chocolaterie in a tiny French village. We soon learn that they have fled from their previous city after the boatman, Roux's boat was burned up. They have changed their names to Madam Yanne Chargonneau and Annie. Their small, but growing chocolate shop originally sold only pre-packaged chocolates, but when the owner died, Yanne/Vianne took it over and begain making her own delicacies, much to the delight of the townspeople.

Cooling [chocolate] acquires a floral scent; of violet and lavender papier poudre. It smells of my grandmother, if I'd had one, and of wedding dresses kept carefully boxed in the attic, and of bouquets under glass. 

Into their lives drifts the exotic woman, Zozie, who joins the shop as a helper and companion to Annie and tiny Rosette while Yanne is cooking. But Zozie seems to have a hidden background and certainly some unusual talents with magic symbols and words to assist the shop attract customers and encourage them to eat. The chocolaterie becomes more popular and all these outsiders become part of the tiny community.

Narrated in turn by the three individual characters, Zozie, Yanne, Annie, and even the mute Rosette, the plot slowly unfolds as somewhat ominous, like glimpsing a darting light out of the corner or your eye. Who exactly is Zozie and what is her purpose for befriending Yanne and Annie? Who are Yanne/Vianne and Anouk/Annie and why did they continue to roam the world and only temporarily settle down before moving on? Why is Rosette silent and underdeveloped for a toddler? And what about the villagers, especially the wealthy Monsieur Thierry, who owns the building with their apartment and chocolaterie, and who has a huge, slightly overpowering crush on Yanne? 

To be a mother is to live in fear. Fear of death, of sickness, of loss, of accidents,of strangers, or simply those small everyday things that somehow manage to hurt us most: the look of impatience, the angry word, the missed bedtime story, the forgotten kiss, the terrible moment when a mother ceases to be the center of her daughter's world and becomes just another satellite orbiting some less significant sun.

It's a dreamy, captivating, and slightly ominous book that certainly engrossed my from start to finish. It gives up its secrets behind the characters ever so slowly, sometimes confusing readers as to who exactly is narrating that particular chapter. While the writing style and pace may lull you. the plot and characters keep you alert right up to the frantically-paced end.

Everything comes home, my mother used to say; every word spoken, every shadow cast, every footprint in the sand. It can't be helped: it's part of what makes us who we are.

I really loved it and hope you will too.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Harris, Joanne. Chocolat.   

First of four books about Vianne Rocher, the mysterious chocolatier, along with her daughter Anouk who blow into a small French town one windy day and create a wondrous chocolate shop. Vianne has the skill to predict what each townsperson's favorite chocolate delicacy is, choices which seem to cause changes in their lives. But her presence and personality somehow pose threats to others in the village. Wonderfully written with fascinating characters.

 

Happy reading.

Fred

 

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