2014 Reading: Chocolat

I started Chocolat by Joanne Harris back in February. This was another one of those books that I started but then just couldn't read at the time for some reason or another (most likely because of stress or something akin to it).

I saw the movie ages ago and I don't really remember anything about it other than Johnny Depp as a hot gypsy and Alfred Molina as a priest. Going into the book, I really had nothing to go on. It's one of those books that took the cover of the movie and made it the cover of the book, so just by looking at it you'd think it was some sensual comedy with sass and chocolate.

...

Some parts were actually quite intense.  The main character and her struggle with the death of her mother (which a reader can plainly see she still hasn't gotten over despite years passing and having a child of her own). The concept of religion plays a heavy role, as some of the chapters come in the form of a confession-type prose from the priest of the small French town in which the book is set.

Chocolate is evil, kids.

Jesus wants you to starve yourself and suffer rather than have chocolate. Remember that.

But then you get into the lives of some of the other people in the town.  You get the man (who burns down someone's houseboat) who's beating his wife (who is a klepto). You get the overly religious fashionista Mom who wants to control everyone's life (including her own mother and son).  The man who seems overly attached to his dog.  Then you get the priest (who burned down another houseboat when he was a kid) who insists on going to talk to an old man (his former priest) in a coma whom he once saw having sex with his mother in the rectory of the church.

WTF even is this book?

It doesn't really seem to have a plot either. Just a LOT of descriptions of different chocolate dishes (in italicized French BTW) and then plotless plot surrounding inevitable doom. And by "doom" I mean that what she thinks is this horrible life outcome is absolutely not.

And then it ends with a note of "meh" as she talks about the winds changing and internally debates whether she should keep her extremely successful chocolate shop or pack up her daughter and live on the road running from something that doesn't exist.

I wish I were joking.

Whatever. I read it. I liked certain parts. And I think the movie is VASTLY different, from what I remember. Maybe I'll go watch it again to be sure. But I won't hurry.