Hydra and the bananas of Leonard Cohen : a search for serenity in the sun : a Greek parabola for us all / Roger Green.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Green, Roger, 1940-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Green, Roger, 1940-.

Green, Roger.

Cohen, Leonard, 1934-2016.

Cohen, Leonard.

Hydra Island (Greece)--Description and travel.

Hydra Island (Greece).

Authors, English--20th century--Biography.

Authors, English.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 217 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Basic Books, [2003]

Summary:

Approaching the Age of Sixty, English poet Roger Green moves to the Greek island of Hydra because he has always felt himself more "south" than "north." When not teaching English at the Schola Bibendorum, he whiles away the hours at his portable Olivetti, attempting to write a proper story. At nights he sings for his supper at his favorite taverna, the Pyrofani. All seems fine. Until the day he discovers that his terrace has an unencumbered view of ... singer, songwriter, and counterculture icon Leonard Cohen's banana trees. And all starts to look quite different. Free to indulge his curiosity, he becomes transfixed with the goings-on in the garden adjoining the house that still belongs to the absent Cohen.

What follows is this fantastically discursive ode to obsession and myth, as what begins as a poem written on the occasion of a birthday evolves into an all-consuming search -- for meaning, for the rest of the story, for the often elusive connections between words and things, ourselves and others. Combining wit, style, and with nods to everyone from Basho to Rainer Maria Rilke, "Suzanne" to Bananarama, Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen proves, once again, that (in the words of fellow poet Lawrence Durrell), life is far too serious not to be taken lightly.

Contents:

Fun de Siecle 4

Notes to Fun de Siecle 7

Singing South 20

Banana Update 39

Interleaves 45

Steve Notes 57

Voyeur 64

My Journey 77

Homecoming 96

Enclosed Garden 105

Death in This Book 125

Rag-and-Bone Shop 137

Of Angels and Wolves 145

Emergency Exit 151

Suzanne 165

Sleepwalking 186

Mister Bowles and Mister Green 196

In Between 204.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-214).

ISBN:

0465027598

OCLC:

52031360