Banana

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What's weak about this book is that you can tell that Cohen writes with a bit of a self righteous and condescending tone. He tries to describe Zemurray as an enigmatic figure who was fierce, yet deeply emotional, etc... when in the end, you look at Zemurray and realize he was just a businessman. A brilliant businessman, but just a businessman nonetheless.

stars because Zemurray's early life was fascinatingly manical and a wild ride ... but I already knew this story. I first learned of this story (Zemurray's plot in Honduras) after reading Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, and was so captivated that I spent the next year studying it extensively... I read everything I could get my hands on about bananas, Central American history and geography, New Orleans in the early 1900s, Gilded Age US politics, Great White Fleet, and Samuel Zemurray and other assorted characters in this "story". It's absolutely wild how much pain and destruction a couple of fruit companies have caused on this earth. And how much financial and political power they have wielded in the United States and continue to wield.

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Because Panama disease was permanently making fallow so much of its existing holdings, the fruit companies had a continuous need for new land, according to John Soluri, author of Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States.” There are three pieces to the banana...the history of humanity's first cultivated plant (modern evidence from New Guinea shows human cultivation from 9000 years ago was of bananas, but for their corms not the fingers we eat today); the politics of the modern cultivation of the banana (the term "banana republic", which I have used without thinking for 30+ years, has a very literal beginning and a scarily modern ring); and the future of humankind's most basic and widely distributed food crop (essential to survival in several parts of the world, the banana is also under threat from several pests that defy modern chemistry to abate, still less conquer, and squeamish food-o-phobes in wealthy countries oppose all modern genetic engineering that could save the survival crop of many parts of the world). These three strands are awkwardly interwoven, with no obvious guiding editorial hand to make sense of their interrelation. Dan buku ini, Saudara-Saudara yang budiman, memang bukan hanya bercerita tentang sejarah pohon dan buah pisang, tapi juga tragedi yang ditimbulkannya dalam sejarah. Bukan hanya tragedi awal mula manusia sehingga terpaksa menjadi khalifah di muka bumi, tapi juga tragedi yang ditimbulkan para importir pisang yang ingin memonopoli pasokan pisang, sehingga dapat mengacau-balaukan demokrasi di negara penghasil pisang (biasa disebut Banana Republic). How about the notion that the banana was the fruit referred to in ancient texts about the Garden of Eden. The climate in the Fertile Crescent was not conducive to apples. And there is some softness in the translations of ancient writings. The forbidden fruit was called a fig, which is also what the banana was called. And really, doesn’t it seem a more fitting shape for the job? Which makes it all the more ironic that bananas are essentially asexual. They do not breed. The fruit we eat today came from cloned plants. Mass-consumption bananas has always come from plants that do not propagate themselves, but require man’s intervention.

Siguiendo con mi costumbre de no alejarme demasiado tiempo de la literatura japonesa, elijo Kichen (1988) la ópera prima de Banana Yosimoto (1964-) para mi lectura. El libro consta de dos novelas cortas independientes (la segunda más breve, casi un cuento), pero con un nexo común: la muerte como tema principal. La muerte y, especialmente, los efectos que ésta causa sobre las personas que rodean a los fallecidos y que sienten un gran afecto por ellos. Something also important to note with this book is that its information has aged in the 11 years since it has been published. This relevance is not a necessarily a negative aspect of the book as it was written for readers at the time, but reading about ideas new to people in 2007 such as organic foods or GMOs might bore a reader from 2018 who already knows a lot on the subject. Also, since the book doesn’t have the most up to date information on how bananas are fighting Panama disease now, I was encouraged to look up the information online.Months pass and Eriko is murdered at her club. The tables turn and Mikage helps Yuichi cope with his loss. Their relationship continues to center around food, and Yoshimoto paints a vivid picture of their life with her description of food and colors as well as Mikage's dreams that determine which life path that she should take. Although both Mikage and Yuichi appear to have bleak existences, their story ends with the reader feeling hopeful that they have finally turned the corner. I felt that I was the only person alive and moving in a world brought to a stop. Houses always feel like that after someone has died." 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. Last, but not least, I wish Koeppel had used footnotes to cite his source material. I suppose he deemed them too “academic” for the average reader or something. Instead, his sources (both major and minor) are dropped into the narrative with an audible CLUNK! �� When you’re travelling, every night the air is clear and crisp, the mind serene. In any case, if nobody was waiting for me anywhere, yes, this serene life would be the thing. But I’m not free, I realized; I’ve been touched by Yuichi’s soul. How much easier it would be to stay away forever.

Traditional housewives "had been taught, probably by caring parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness". Maybe YAs would relate to the characters better than I did (I have no idea), but I'd be reluctant to recommend it to them because of the next problem...

Moonlight Shadow is the other short story in this edition and it is... short. It covers much the same ground as Kitchen and feels like an earlier work. It was too sparse for me, too blank. In addition, there are innumerable turns of phrase that are unforgettable but I particularly liked: Ze volgt altijd haar intuïtie, ik vind het fantastisch dat ze ook de kracht heeft dat te realiseren 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). Wherever he went, Hitoshi always had a little bell with him, attached to the case he kept his bus pass in. Even though it was just a trinket, something I gave him before we were in love, it was destined to remain at his side until the last.