GRGR1: Discussion opener for section 1

[David L. Pelovitz, Ph.D.]

On Sat, 21 Sep 1996 ckaratnytsky at nypl.org wrote:
>      
>      Question 6:  What exactly are all those bananas about?
>      
>      Well, sometimes a banana is just a banana, Dr. Freud.  As before, I 
>      think the bananas can be read as evidence of Pirate's mastery of the 
>      material world--though I'm not above mulling over their phallic 
>      connotations.     

In the last full paragraph of page 5 in the Penguin, we are given
"fragments of peculiar alkaloids, to rooftop earth, along with 
manure from a trio of prize Wessex Saddleback sows quartered there
by Throsp's sucessor, and dead leaves off many decorative trees 
transplanted to the roof by later tenants, and the odd unstomachable
meal thrown or vomited there by this or that sensitive epicurian -
all got scrambled together, eventually, by the knives of the seasons,
to an impasto, feet thick, of unbelievable black topsoil in which
anything could grow, not the least being bananas."

This is one of the first times in the novel we are given waste
and entropy and end up creating life in the form of bananas.
This also seems to be the first passage which supports
the WvB epigram.  Life is not being extinguished, it is transofrming.

Then again, the banana is also a little too phallic not to mention it.
But it is also pretty close to a rocket arc reaching Brenschluss.
							
David Pelovitz, Ph.D. - dqp5805 at is4.nyu.edu