Status
Available
Local notes
PB Bob
Collection
Publication
Delta (2008), 257 pages
Description
In her lush, luminous debut novel, Merlinda Bobis creates a dazzling feast for all the senses. Richly imagined, gloriously written, Banana Heart Summer is an incandescent tale of food, family, and longing--at once a love letter to mothers and daughters and a lively celebration of friendship and community. Twelve-year-old Nenita is hungry for everything: food, love, life. Growing up with five sisters and brothers, she searches for happiness in the magical smell of the deep-frying bananas of Nana Dora, who first tells Nenita the myth of the banana heart; in the tantalizing scent of Manolito, the heartthrob of Nenita and her friends; in the pungent aromas of the dishes she prepares for the most beautiful woman on Remedios Street. To Nenita, food is synonymous with love--the love she yearns to receive from her disappointed mother. But in this summer of broken hearts, new friendships, secrets, and discoveries, change will be as sudden and explosive as the monsoon that marks the end of the sweltering heat--and transforms Nenita's young life in ways she could never imagine.… (more)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
257 p.; 5 inches
User reviews
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
This coming-of-age novel is set in the Philippines in, as best I can tell, the early 1960s. Years later, the narrator recalls the summer of her 12th year, the summer she “ate the heart of the matter.” All of the action takes place on the narrator's street, bound on one end by a church and on
Although I read it fairly quickly, it isn't a particularly easy read. The author has an unusual writing style and uses a lot of imagery relating to food, such as the banana heart of the title. Sometimes it is difficult to tell if the narrator is describing a real event or simply using her imagination. This book would be an interesting selection for a reading group. It deals with universal themes such as belonging, acceptance, unrequited love, and parent-child relationships.
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the other end by a volcano. The residents of the street range from affluent to extremely poor. 12-year-old Nenita's family of eight are some of the poorest on the street, and food is always scarce for them. Nenita is driven by her hunger and is obsessed by thoughts of food. She views all of the events of the summer through the lens of food, translating her emotions into flavors such as bitter, sour, sweet, salty, or hot.Although I read it fairly quickly, it isn't a particularly easy read. The author has an unusual writing style and uses a lot of imagery relating to food, such as the banana heart of the title. Sometimes it is difficult to tell if the narrator is describing a real event or simply using her imagination. This book would be an interesting selection for a reading group. It deals with universal themes such as belonging, acceptance, unrequited love, and parent-child relationships.
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LibraryThing member wandering_star
Merlinda Bobis is a poet, and this book - a young girl's description of her street and neighbours in a small town in the Philippines - is a very poetic one.
It's full of symbolism - the street itself is described more than once as sitting between a church and a volcano, "between two gods. The
If the volcano represents uncontrollable human passions, for most of the book you might think that it's not much of a competition. A young man elopes with his mother's greatest rival. The beauty of the street breaks several hearts. Nining (our narrator) nurses a crush on the son of the street's wealthiest family. "None of us could move before the perfect teeth at the other side. his preening and our ogling crossed and recrossed the road, and better sense was ambushed by hormones."
But the church is represented in smaller, darker ways, such as the shame the narrator's mother feels towards her first-born, the symbol of her romance with a labourer which got her thrown out of her wealthy family's house.
Nining gets a job as a maid and cook in a neighbour's house, and the majority of the book's symbolism is around food. Nearly every chapter heading is the name of a dish which features in the chapter, and nearly every person's story is told through references to food. Lovers give each other sweets, poor families argue over the price of a basic dish, a recluse lives self-sufficiently on the vegetables from his garden.
I know that this food-oriented magical-realist approach has been done many times before, and occasionally the symbolism was a little too obvious (when the handsome boy puts his hand on Nining's arm, she thinks, "Perhaps this is how fruit awakens to its ripening"). But I enjoyed the book a lot - and after all, it explains clearly how in a culture like the Philippines', food is tremendously symbolic of social relations and family circumstances; so why not make use of that with some mouth-watering writing?
My only real criticism is that although the book plays a lot with the idea of the contrast between heart and spleen (which medically is supposed to clean the blood, but symbolically represents anger), the writing is so lovely and charming that it's hard to realise the genuine pain in the relationship between Nining and her mother, until a rather shocking scene part-way through the book. But maybe next time I read the book it will come through more clearly.
It's full of symbolism - the street itself is described more than once as sitting between a church and a volcano, "between two gods. The
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smoking peak and the soaring cross faced each other in a perpetual stand-off, as if blocked for a duel".If the volcano represents uncontrollable human passions, for most of the book you might think that it's not much of a competition. A young man elopes with his mother's greatest rival. The beauty of the street breaks several hearts. Nining (our narrator) nurses a crush on the son of the street's wealthiest family. "None of us could move before the perfect teeth at the other side. his preening and our ogling crossed and recrossed the road, and better sense was ambushed by hormones."
But the church is represented in smaller, darker ways, such as the shame the narrator's mother feels towards her first-born, the symbol of her romance with a labourer which got her thrown out of her wealthy family's house.
Nining gets a job as a maid and cook in a neighbour's house, and the majority of the book's symbolism is around food. Nearly every chapter heading is the name of a dish which features in the chapter, and nearly every person's story is told through references to food. Lovers give each other sweets, poor families argue over the price of a basic dish, a recluse lives self-sufficiently on the vegetables from his garden.
I know that this food-oriented magical-realist approach has been done many times before, and occasionally the symbolism was a little too obvious (when the handsome boy puts his hand on Nining's arm, she thinks, "Perhaps this is how fruit awakens to its ripening"). But I enjoyed the book a lot - and after all, it explains clearly how in a culture like the Philippines', food is tremendously symbolic of social relations and family circumstances; so why not make use of that with some mouth-watering writing?
My only real criticism is that although the book plays a lot with the idea of the contrast between heart and spleen (which medically is supposed to clean the blood, but symbolically represents anger), the writing is so lovely and charming that it's hard to realise the genuine pain in the relationship between Nining and her mother, until a rather shocking scene part-way through the book. But maybe next time I read the book it will come through more clearly.
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LibraryThing member thornton37814
This is one of the strangest books I've read recently. It is well-crafted in a literary sense, but the descriptions of child abuse are disturbing. The book centers around food. Food is also used metaphorically to describe the events of everyday life on this single street in the Philippines where
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both rich and poor reside. Show Less
LibraryThing member bsittig
Melinda Bobis tells the haunting story of a twelve year old girl living in poverty in a small village in the Philippines. Nenita is a warm, loving girl who is abused by her mother. The mother married outside her class when she became pregnant with Nenita and resents the shame brought into her life.
This book is beautifully written. Nenita breaks your heart but never pities herself. She manages to see the beauty around her in spite of the pain and ugliness in her world. It's as if the beauty is more vibrant because of the pain, just as the sensation of taste is enhanced by hunger. I will definitely look for other works by this author.
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Nenita tries unsuccessfully to please her mother and win her love. She is always hungry and learns to cook from an old lady with a snack stand. Nenita equates cooking with showing love and the food and cooking descriptions are beautifully lyrical. Nenita befriends everyone in the neighborhood and learns the secrets and intricacies of adult life. Nenita is taken in as a maid by a wealthy family but continues to take food and money to her family. She finally stands up to her mother when she begins to abuse her brother, the oldest now that she has left. The story ends when she is invited to move to America with the daughter of the wealthy family to be her cook and maid. This book is beautifully written. Nenita breaks your heart but never pities herself. She manages to see the beauty around her in spite of the pain and ugliness in her world. It's as if the beauty is more vibrant because of the pain, just as the sensation of taste is enhanced by hunger. I will definitely look for other works by this author.
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LibraryThing member Peggy72
Very lyrical, you can tell the author is also a poet. I didn't know whether I should cry, laugh or eat while reading this. The tastes, smells and sounds leap off the pages and surround you - coconut, shrimp paste, palm sugar....
LibraryThing member mdbrady
A lyrical narrative of a girl growing up in the Philippines during an eventful summer for her and the people living on her street.
Merlinda Bobis now lives and writes in Australia, but she grew up in the Philippines and places much of her writing there. She is a poet and a novelist, probably best
Nenita, the narrator of Banana Heart Summer, is the oldest of six children of a family mired down in poverty. Her mother had left a well-to-do family when she fell in love with a stone mason. The summer that Nenita was twelve, her father was out of work and her mother pregnant again. Beaten by her angry mother, Nenita set out to earn money to feed her family, and to “please or appease” her mother. That summer all the people along her street are drawn in to life-changing events ranging from acts of love and despair to the eruption of the nearby the volcano.
As in her other books, Bobis blends the imaginary and symbolic with concrete bits of reality. Perpetually hungry, Nenita fills her story with recipes and descriptions of food. She gives us detailed accounts of various local dishes that she and others prepare. Her recipes are layered with comments about the impact different foods have on people and the need to balance love and anger, the heart and the spleen. Underneath the banana hearts and coconut milk, we see her own need not just for food, but for love.
I recommend this book enthusiastically to those who enjoy books of depth and whimsy.
Merlinda Bobis now lives and writes in Australia, but she grew up in the Philippines and places much of her writing there. She is a poet and a novelist, probably best
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known for her impressive, multi-layered Fish-Hair Woman. This book, like her Solemn Lantern-Maker, (see my reviews) is a simpler story with much of the same fine writing.Nenita, the narrator of Banana Heart Summer, is the oldest of six children of a family mired down in poverty. Her mother had left a well-to-do family when she fell in love with a stone mason. The summer that Nenita was twelve, her father was out of work and her mother pregnant again. Beaten by her angry mother, Nenita set out to earn money to feed her family, and to “please or appease” her mother. That summer all the people along her street are drawn in to life-changing events ranging from acts of love and despair to the eruption of the nearby the volcano.
As in her other books, Bobis blends the imaginary and symbolic with concrete bits of reality. Perpetually hungry, Nenita fills her story with recipes and descriptions of food. She gives us detailed accounts of various local dishes that she and others prepare. Her recipes are layered with comments about the impact different foods have on people and the need to balance love and anger, the heart and the spleen. Underneath the banana hearts and coconut milk, we see her own need not just for food, but for love.
I recommend this book enthusiastically to those who enjoy books of depth and whimsy.
Show Less
Pages
257