This is not Doris

Please don’t eat the daisies, Jean Kerr,1954
**
I discovered this book a small used book store at the beach in North Carolina.  I am a big Doris Day fan, so I thought, “How cute!  Its the book that the movie was based on.”  Well, it is the book that the movie was based on, but that is where all similarity ends.  In fact the book is pretty saucy compared to the movie which features Doris Day as a housewife and mother of 4 rowdy boys.

Please don’t eat the daisies is a collection of essays by Jean Kerr about her life as a playwright, mother and wife in the early 50’s.  She writes frankly that her goal in life had always been to sleep late, so she married and found a career that enabled her to do just that.  I am really interested in vintage books, but rarely do I come across anything so frank from a woman’s perspective.  I highly recommend this collection of essays if you ever come across it.  I don’t have kids, but I found what Jean Kerr says about her own pretty funny.  She survives her 4 boys  and juggles home and work with wit and brazen style.  Or at least, she writes that she does.

Don’t expect the Doris Day version, the real thing is so much more.

chocolat chocolate yum

Chocolat, Joanne Harris
*
I will admit that I stocked some nice dark chocolate for this read.    If you are about to read this novel, I recommend stocking up yourself.  Splurge and get the good kind.  Some hot cocoa or a mocha would be in theme too.   It seems that the townspeople of Lansquenet are always eating and drinking chocolat. Perhaps you have seen the movie…I confess to watching the movie before reading the book.  I saw it when it first came out.  And it was good, but as usual, the book is better with less romance and more character.  Chocolat is a fairy tale and an ordinary tale all in one.  I liked that the novel’s romance unfolds within each person rather than as affairs.  It is far more important that the characters come to enjoy who they are individually, only then can they see others beauty.I wasn’t as impressed with the darker aspects of the novel as being scary but the character of the priest is rich.  Father Reynaud is a caricature of himself.   And it is his fault that he falls into the stereotypical bad guy.   Harris creates him to be the antithesis of Vianne Rocher.  The interesting aspect of this is that he has the potential to be so wonderfully human, but he must constantly flatten himself with piety and martyrdom.  He resists the reality of himself.  I believe that this character struggle is the moving force within Chocolat.