ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET

[Werner Presber]

"Pirate, driven to despair by the wartime banana shortage, decided to 
build a glass hothouse on the roof, and persuade a friend who flew the 
Rio-to-Ascension-to-Fort-Lamy run to pinch him a sapling banana tree or 
two, in exchange for a German camera, should Pirate happen across one 
on his next mission by parachute."

"(...)The line of separation between the uncultivated zone and the 
banana plantation is not entirely straight. It is a zigzag line, with 
alternately protruding and receding angles, each belonging to a 
different patch of different age, but of a generally identical 
orientation.

Just opposite the house, a clump of trees marks the highest point the 
cultivation reaches in this sector. The patch that ends here is a 
rectangle. The ground is invisible, or virtually so, between the 
fronds. Still, the impeccable alignment of the boles shows that they 
have been planted only recently and that no stems have as yet been cut.

Starting from this clump of trees, the patch runs downhill with a 
slight divergence (toward the left)) from the greatest angle of slope. 
There are thirty-two banana trees in the row, down to the lower edge of 
the patch.

Prolonging this patch toward the bottom, with the same arrangement of 
rows, another patch occupies the space included between the first patch 
and the little stream that flows through the valley bottom. This second 
patch is twenty-three trees deep, and only its more advanced vegetation 
distinguishes it from the preceding patch: the greater height of the 
trunks, the tangle of fronds, and the number of well-formed stems. 
Besides, some stems have already been cut. But the empty place where 
the bole has been cut is then as easily discernible as the tree itself 
would be with its tuft of wide, palegreen leaves, out of which comes 
the thick curving stem bearing the fruit. (...)"

Jealousy (excerpt) (1957  by ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET

http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/jealousy.html
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