banana breakfast

[Monte Davis]

Umm...maybe Pirate cooks with marge simply because that's what almost
everyone almost always *did* in London in 1944? Simply because the
maisonette-dwellers were fortunate enough to have bananas and (rationed)
eggs, but not (likewise rationed) butter?

Sometimes a molecule is just a molecule.







On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 11:34 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Says LK: "(except for the curve, which isn't pronounced enough to suggest
> the rocket's parabola)"
>
> I like this, and it feels resonant with the Zero. Is there such
> curvature-of-the-earth type stuff in *M&D*? In the banana it's sort of a
> bound, organic issue of parallax.
>
> "So even when Pynchon is talking about Nature (in this case, unnaturally
> growing bananas), he's reminding us how easy it is for science to mimic it,
> or to tear apart and exploit the delicate molecules."
>
> Even Pirate's breakfast is cooked with marge.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 9:08 AM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> I remember my feelings about this section from my very first reading: I'd
>> made it through that very tough, surreal first section, and, along with
>> Teddy Bloat, had crash-landed back into reality - or so I thought. But as
>> the roster of Pirate's comfort foods grows to unreal proportions - omelets,
>> waffles, kreplach, flambe, etc. - I realized the footing wasn't as firm as
>> I thought. Since I was trapped in a day-long jury pool stint (they never
>> choose me!), I had nothing to do but plunge further into the book. I'm glad
>> I did!
>>
>> Some thoughts on the bananas:
>>
>> They're phallic, and, therefore, rocket-shaped (except for the curve,
>> which isn't pronounced enough to suggest the rocket's parabola).
>>
>> So Pirate is mashing and softening this rocketlike object into the
>> comfort foods of all nations - though only of the allied nations, plus
>> Jewish kreplach. He's not making banana torte or anything that could be
>> construed as Germanic (what would the German - but not Jewish - sweet
>> breakfast dish be?). It's an antidote or answer to the missile he just saw
>> taking off.
>>
>> The musaceous odor. Anyone who's ever taken organic chemistry (did
>> Pynchon? Anyone know?) has probably synthesized banana ester in the lab.
>> it's a standard lab exercise, and it's easy to know if you've got it right,
>> by that musaceous odor (I aced this one, but had a pretty poor output on
>> the following aspirin synthesis exercise!). So even when Pynchon is talking
>> about Nature (in this case, unnaturally growing bananas), he's reminding us
>> how easy it is for science to mimic it, or to tear apart and exploit the
>> delicate molecules.
>>
>> "though it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off."  I love
>> this line! With his rockets-into-kreplach, musaceous breakfast, a spell
>> against falling objects, that's exactly what Pirate is doing.
>>
>> Laura
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>> From: Monte Davis
>>
>> Sent: Mar 22, 2016 8:23 AM
>>
>> To: gary webb
>>
>> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org"
>>
>> Subject: Re: banana breakfast
>>
>>
>>
>> "Fragile" and "labyrinthine" and "complexity," especially in association
>> with living nature, tend to be pretty reliably Good Things in GR compared
>> to anything metallic, rectilinear, or stripped to "brute" purposefulness.
>> What shall we do with all this useless beauty?
>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 7:22 AM, gary webb wrote:
>> "Now there grows among all the rooms, replacing the nights old smoke,
>> alcohol and sweat, the fragile, musaceous odor of breakfast: flowery,
>> permeating, surprising, more than the color of winter sunlight, taking over
>> not so much though any brute pungency or volume as by the high intricacy to
>> the weaving of its molecules, sharing the conjuror's secret by which-though
>> it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off-the living genetic
>> chains prove even labyrinthine enough to preserve some human face down ten
>> or twenty generations... (pg.10)"
>> In this coming together of all those who will soon have to face death,
>> they are allowed this marginal bit of life...
>> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
>
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