Banana

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Two broken people together don’t make a whole necessarily and sometimes the narrative steers into overly sweet territory. Still the katsu don scene is *chefs kiss*, and would work perfectly in an anime.

Having read Bitter Fruit (which I highly recommend!), I knew the book would eventually get to United Fruit's involvement in the '54 Guatemalan coup. I was looking forward to learning more about Zemurray's role in the coup - did he help initiate the campaign? How much did he know? Instead, this part of the book was frustratingly confusing. It's not clear at all if Zemurray even played a role. The book doesn't clearly state that he retired as President from U.F. in 1951 (the coup was three years later). But '51 is when the propaganda campaign started - so was he involved or not? The book also briefly mentions Zemurray getting updates from Corcoran (his apparent go-between with the CIA), but doesn't mention in what capacity and during what time period. Yosimoto es minuciosa en el tratamiento de temas escabrosos y delicados (muerte, soledad, familia, sexo…) y lo hace de manera natural, sencilla, nada soez. Y, aunque su visión es realmente pesimista, parece que al final deja un rayo de luz para la redención. So you get the idea, lots of info about something most of us never gave, well, a fig about. It is a fun read and you will find yourself saying (or thinking, if you don’t want to make the person next to you on the subway slowly edge away) “I did not know that.” Given that there are existential threats abroad to the common banana, and that we are not yet ready with a cross-bred version that is resistant to those threats, we should probably do what we can to appreciate the banana before it…um…splits. A gripping biological detective story that uncovers the myth, mystery, and endangered fate of the world's most humble fruitThe consumer price should be double what it is now for a fair production chain’, say Van Rijn en Kema. ‘A fair price provides the workers on banana plantations with wages that offer a better standard of living than is currently the case,’ Van Rijn states. ‘Prices within the chain are currently on the rise due to fuel prices for air and sea freight,’ Kema adds. ‘Moreover, the increased need for pesticides also increases the expenses for the farmers. South American bananas we eat have been sprayed at least 40 to 65 times per year, which makes bananas one of the least sustainable crops.’ The same bananas The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it's a kitchen, if it's a place where they make food, it's fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. White the catching the light (ting! ting!). Telkens als ik met hem had afgesproken gebeurde hetzelfde: dan werd ik verdrietig omdat ik was wie ik was Hay cosas tan duras que dan ganas de apartar la vista. Ni siquiera el amor puede salvarte del todo” Such interesting characters are to be found in this rather philosophical work, individuals in fact who I continued to think about after I finished the book.

Maybe the two most prominent points are his overthrow of Honduras government and his acquisition of the United Fruit.

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To be fair, I also want to point out that anti-GMO zealots can be useful in their incorrectness, since it seems reasonable that private enterprises engaged in genetic manipulation can be expected to engage in safety-be-damned corner-cutting in pursuit of the largest return for their shareholders, so should be watched over by as many people as possible with a heartfelt adversarial relationship to the process. The story peaks early, and the remaining 3/4 of the book is a jumble of apologetic mishmash. Cohen would have served his reader better by not interjecting himself into the biography of someone else time and time again. Cohen has an agenda for this book, and he bent the story to fit it. I lost count of the time he states "He would have said this..." or "He would have believed this way...". These conjectures became so tiresome and annoying and I ended up skimming the last few chapters. I cannot say that Banana Yoshimoto will be a contender for the Nobel Prize, but I can say that she delivers a strong argument for being one of the great writers currently writing today. Mikage was an orphan, raised by her grandmother: "I was always aware that my family consisted of only one other person. The space that cannot be filled, no matter how cheerfully a child and an old person live together - the deathly silence that, panting in the corner of the room, pushes its way in like a shudder." (The punctuation is a little odd, though.)

Kitchen is definitely not the most ingeniously narrated tale ever. Rather it suffers from the monotony of brief, simple sentences that may not sit well with some readers who love eloquence. This is yet another entry in the single-subject world of non-fiction. The narrowness of focus in books such as Salt and Cod and The Book on the Bookshelf and The Pencil and Longitude seems to be an increasingly preevalent trend in publishing. I am all for it on one level, since I like delving into the abstruse and wallowing in details that leave most people I know colder than a penguin's butt in the middle of the Antarctic winter; but on another level, I want to stop these publishers before they bore again with books inadequately edited and organized. The same man was also pivotal in the early history of Israel. As Chaim Weizmann’s favorite donor in America. As the man who pulled strings to force the release of the ship Exodus from the Port of Philadelphia and send it on its way to Israel. And as the source of ocean-going ships that carried tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from displaced-person camps in Europe to Palestine. Not to mention that he was the central figure in persuading President Truman to support the independence of Israel. Oh, and he also helped make the banana America’s favorite fruit. What else would you expect of America’s Banana King? This is an incredibly difficult question to answer, for both the characters in the story as well as for the reader. In the story, Mikage loses her grandmother and is then invited to stay with Eriko (a transvestite) and her (his) son, Yuichi. For the most part, this piecemeal family goes about its daily interactions as any “normal” family would. That is until tragedy strikes. I won’t spoil what happens, but let’s just say Mikage loses again, along with some other characters. It is at this point that the reader takes on a new role: one of participant. There are several choices that the reader must make: 1) stop reading; 2) allow the events to play out and continue reading; or 3) believe in the tragedy and get lost in the story. I chose number 3. And even though I have no basis of understanding to compare to these characters, I felt their pain, the confusion, the moments of helplessness that teeter precariously on the edge of hopelessness.I was expecting lyrical language, and quirky insights into Japanese attitudes to death and LGBTQ issues. I was sadly disappointed, but kept going because it was short and because I gave up part way through my previous book (something I rarely do).