mysteries of the mistress of spices

The Mistress of Spices is a lyric novel, written in a mixture of prose and poetry, in the style that has been called “magic realism”: while primarily set in this world (specifically, a run-down part of Oakland, California), it includes features which defy natural laws and give it an air of mysticism. The heroine, Tilo, comes to Oakland after she has been trained on a remote, magical island by the priestess-like Old Mistress of Spices for a vocation of ministering to others. Assuming a crone’s body and forbidden to leave her shop, Tilo shares the magic of her spices and her own psychic powers with a variety of Indian immigrants who are alienated, lonely, and/or in danger in their new homeland. Soon, however, her own independent, intense nature leads her to disobey her instructions (and the voices of her spices, which take on animate qualities). She ventures outside the shop; she falls in love with a non-Indian. In the end, Tilo must decide whether she will remain true to her calling or choose an ordinary life of mortal love, knowing that her choice will bring potentially dire effects.

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Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni was born in India (Bengal) and lived there until 1976, when she emigrated to the United States to study. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. During her education, her website biography notes, she worked at “many odd jobs, including babysitting, selling merchandise in an Indian boutique, slicing bread in a bakery, and washing instruments in a science lab.” She has published in many anthologies and magazines (including the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly) and has won awards for her poetry (a Pushcart Prize, and Alan Ginsberg Award) and for her prose (Arranged Marriage won a National Book Award in 1996). The Mistress of Spices was named to several best-books lists, including the San Francisco Chronicle’s “100 Best Books of the 20th Century” list.

Divakaruni teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and has judged the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award. She has continued to be active in social justice concerns, working with organizations that help South Asian and South Asian American women who are victims of domestic violence, and with a group that helps educate urban slum children in India. She lives in Houston with her husband and two sons. Her website (www.chitradivakaruni.com) includes biographical details, information on her books and awards, links to interviews, and a page about her writing practice.

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Discussion Questions

• The book shares a great deal of information about the alleged powers of individual spices. Do you believe that spices (or other food) can indeed change people’s ways of thinking? Ways of behaving? Fates?
• Tilo is clearly an independent, rebellious young woman from her earliest years. Why does she choose to become a Mistress?
• In writing about her own work on her website, the author says that women’s problems–especially the problems of immigrant women–are among her foremost concerns (she also reveals that she worked at a battered woman’s shelter in Berkeley). Does this novel have things to say about why immigrant women (or any women) suffer? Does it hold out any hope for relief? Are the spices a kind of metaphor in this equation?
• “I write to unite people . . . to dissolve boundaries,” Divakaruni has said. What kinds of boundaries are being dissolved in this novel, and how? Does food play a role in this dissolution?
• A New York Times Book Review article called Mistress of Spices’ ending (in which Tilo chooses her lover over her vocation) “predictable”; a more harsh phrase that might be used is “a sell-out to romantic conventions.” How do you respond to Tilo’s choice? Is the author ultimately compromising the theme of women’s power by having her main character deny her vocation?
• How do you respond to the earthquake at the book’s end?
• Divakaruni’s poetry has won many prizes, as the biographical sketch above suggests. In what ways is this book “poetic?” Do those components make it a better book? Do poetry and spices go together, somehow? How?

thoughts on chocolat...

about... Joanne Harris was born in 1964 to an English father and French mother and has lived her whole life in England. Trained as a linguist at Cambridge, she worked as an elementary school teacher for fifteen years, during which time she published three novels. The last of these was Chocolat, which catapulted her in 1999 to international fame. She then became a full-time writer and has produced five more novels (several of which also use food motifs, including Blackberry Wine and Five Quarters of the Orange) and a collection of short stories, and she has collaborated on two cookbooks (The French Kitchen and The French Market). Her fiction has been termed “gastromance” for the way that it merges exuberant description of food with the conventions of romantic fiction. She lives with her husband and daughter near where she was born, and is a musician as well as an award-winning writer.

Harris’ extensive website includes biographical information, notes on her books, links to interviews with her, and an excellent informal essay entitled “How I Write,” which will interest readers who are themselves aspiring writers.

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1. Why do you think that Vianne sets up her chocolate shop in this town? Why has she chosen chocolate in the first place as a means for expressing herself, since her mother wasn’t interested in the craft of cooking? Is luxury chocolate appropriate, given her personality? Her psychic gifts?

2. Why (besides the chocolate’s delicious taste) are the townspeople drawn to Vianne’s shop? What is Vianne expressing through her chocolate, and why do the townspeople need that?

3. In what ways are Vianne and Father Reynaud moral opposites? Harris has said that there are no real heroes or villains in the work–do you agree? Can you see drawbacks to living with Vianne’s values, as well as with Reynaud’s? Can you find pity for him, as well as for her?

4. What does the character of Anouk add to the book? How would your sense of Vianne, or of the symbolism of the chocolate itself, be different if she weren’t there? Does knowing that Harris based the character on her own young daughter influence your take on the novel? Knowing that the character of Armande was based on Harris’ beloved great grandmother, a fine cook and powerful matriarch?

5. The battle over chocolate in Lansquenet takes place during Lent, a time when people traditionally deny themselves things to focus their spiritual energy. Harris seems to be suggesting that such self-denial is inevitably repressive–do you agree? Or, do you think that there is a time and place for such discipline?

6. Chocolat has a great deal to say about insiders and outsiders (in both social terms and in terms of institutionalized religion). What do you think that Harris is ultimately suggesting about the costs and benefits of being one or the other?

7. Do you think that the ending (both what happens to Reynaud and what happens to Vianne) is plausible? Why or why not?

8. Harris has suggested that the book demonstrates that “love, not faith is the key to salvation.” How does this theme play out in Chocolat? Why might Harris have chosen chocolate, per se (vs., say, garlic or cheese or lobster) as the central metaphor, given this thematic intention?

choice cuts... thoughts to ponder

about... Mark Kurlansky wrote the best-selling books Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changes the World, Salt: A World History, and The Basque History of the World. He worked as a professional chef and pastry maker in New York and New England and writes a column about food history for the magazine Food and Wine. He has won the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing. He has also written for 25 years about international affairs, particularly European and Latin American subjects, and has recently written a collection of short stories and a novel based on his experiences in the Caribbean. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.

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1. How do the approaches and attitudes toward specific foods (chocolate, spices, meat) voiced by writers in this collection compare/contrast to those put forth in other books that you’ve read in this series?

2. Within any given chapter in this book, you’ll see a range of ideas about the properties of a particular food group, the best way to prepare it, and what it symbolizes culturally. Look at some of the writers who voice attitudes less familiar to you. What can you learn about their culture/time period from what they say about food?

3. Many of the writers in this book are extremely opinionated. What is it about food, in particular, that tends to bring out such strong feelings? Choose a few writers for your discussion.
4. Can you identify historical changes overall in the way that people think about food? What are those? Are the more recent writers necessarily more “right” than the earlier ones? Why or why not?

5. Can you identify any constants in the way that people think about food that transcend the historical and cultural contrasts chronicled in this book? What are they?

6. Which selections here do you particularly like? Why? Do those writers express attitudes toward food that you share?