Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen: A Midlife Crisis in the Sun

From Publishers Weekly
A British poet turns 53, moves to a Greek island, becomes obsessed with the island's most famous ex-resident-singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen-and writes a book about it all. It's an eclectic mixture of memoir, diary, scrapbook and philosophical ramblings. Green, the poet, finds himself living next door to a garden full of banana trees owned by 1970s pop star Cohen (referred to only by the initial "L."). Inexplicably, Green becomes powerfully attracted to the bananas and their absent owner. He begins to see bananas everywhere: in the Old Testament (did Adam and Eve clothe themselves in banana leaves?), in Robbe-Grillet poems, on the cover of L.'s album I'm Your Man. He even goes so far as to befriend some of L.'s old acquaintances on the island, including a fellow poet and L.'s former lover, Suzanne, who is, alas, not the Suzanne of the famous L. song. The goal of all this good-natured stalking is unclear, but this isn't a book of goals, or even conclusions; it's simply an expression of what is, clearly, an enviable and rewarding existence. Green's idiosyncrasies occasionally annoy-as when he starts a new paragraph with the sentence, "I think I'll start a new paragraph"-but just as often he produces little treasures, such as a raunchy 1950s rumba celebrating "Chiquita Banana, down in Martinique," who "dresses in bananas with the modern technique."Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
Having passed the age of fifty, English poet Roger Green moves to the Greek island of Hydra because he has always felt himself more "south" than north. But he is not sure what he will find there-other than sun and the suspension of life's more mundane responsibilities that every ex-pat longs for. As he wiles away the days at his portable Olivetti, attempting to write a proper story, and the nights singing for his supper at the Pyrofani, the local watering hole, he is not quite prepared for a challenge of any kind. Let alone grapple with the discovery that his terrace has an unencumbered view of . . . singer, songwriter, and counterculture icon Leonard Cohen's banana trees. Or more exactly, that he'd soon be transfixed with the goings-on in the garden adjoining the house that still belongs to Cohen. What follows is Green's fantastically discursive ode to obsession and myth, relayed in a series of digressions that prove far more illuminating-and life-affirming-than the facts laid bare. Combining deprecating wit, unconventional style, and a decidedly playful mastery of the English language, Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen proves, once again, that (in the words of fellow poet Laurence Durrell), life is far too serious not to be taken lightly.


About the Author
Roger Green is an English poet living on the Greek island of Hydra. Among his publications are several books of poetry, including Wolvercote Dreaming, assisted by a grant from the Arts Council of Great Britain. Notes from Overground by Tiresias, subtitled A Commuter's Notebook, saw the light in 1984. His translation of the Akathistos Hymn by Romanos the Melodist was published in 1987 by the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A further collection of poetry, With It Or On It, appeared in 2000.


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A British poet turns 53, moves to a Greek island, becomes obsessed with the island's most famous ex-resident-singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen-and writes a book about it all. It's an eclectic mixture of memoir, diary, scrapbook and philosophical ramblings. Green, the poet, finds himself living next door to a garden full of banana trees owned by 1970s pop star Cohen (referred to only by the initial "L."). Inexplicably, Green becomes powerfully attracted to the bananas and their absent owner. He begins to see bananas everywhere: in the Old Testament (did Adam and Eve clothe themselves in banana leaves?), in Robbe-Grillet poems, on the cover of L.'s album I'm Your Man. He even goes so far as to befriend some of L.'s old acquaintances on the island, including a fellow poet and L.'s former lover, Suzanne, who is, alas, not the Suzanne of the famous L. song. The goal of all this good-natured stalking is unclear, but this isn't a book of goals, or even conclusions; it's simply an expression of what is, clearly, an enviable and rewarding existence. Green's idiosyncrasies occasionally annoy-as when he starts a new paragraph with the sentence, "I think I'll start a new paragraph"-but just as often he produces little treasures, such as a raunchy 1950s rumba celebrating "Chiquita Banana, down in Martinique," who "dresses in bananas with the modern technique." (Sept.) Forecast: Green's many-headed book should appeal to fans of Trout Fishing in America, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and other whimsical literature. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


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