GR Section 2 (pg7-16) Summary

[J K Van Nort]

The section begins as Prentice descends into the maisonette and begins his banana breakfast ritual. We get the cooking routine with cooking details, sexual and dark, gallows humor typical in wartime. Bloat and Prentice discuss the rocket, and Prentice calls to confirm that it occurred. They joke about what will kill them. Osbie Feel masturbates a banana while singing about returning to the fight. He’s then beaten by the others with the same banana. Bananas are cut on a pub sign of Snipe & Shaft (Snipe is an anagram for penis). Two men, Pox and Stick beat a concrete model of the Jungfrau (maiden, virgin) with bags of ice, ‘wasted gods urging on a tardy glacier’. The slaughter of the light brigade is mocked by Prentice’s motto. Men wake and cursorily practice rough forms of hygiene. The smell of the banana breakfast temporarily wards off war and death for a brief respite. The breakfast preparation continues as the housemates rise and help with the culinary effort. Bananas are chopped, roasted, pureed, fermented, frozen. At the same time, exhausted, prematurely aged and hungover men prepare themselves for what ‘they’ll have to be doing in less than an hour’. Just as the dining experience begins, the phone rings to let Pirate know that the rocket crashed in Greenwich with a message for him. He’s ordered to go pick up his ‘incoming mail’. He downs a ladle of mead, chugging it like time and observes his distance and isolation from the others. His car arrives, and he rides to Greenwich. As he passes some chanting sappers, he goes into one of his fantasy-surrogate modes. We learn about his unique skill and how Prentice and then “The Firm” learn about it. The firm studied him and then used him when useful. His first assignment involved a fantasy about an adenoid of Lord Blatheral Osmo, who became distracted by this dream of his removed adenoid attacking London, leaving his important assignment in the “Great Game” unattended. The section ends with the adenoid sedated, Osmo focused until found dead, and Pirate barely hanging onto his sanity.