Deep Thinking While Eating Bananas

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
Close Reading page 22

For the following close reading this passage was used:

"It looked as if Bolden had no notion he was not coming back when he left for Shell Beach. Wenn took much more seriously than others in his profession sudden actions and off hand gestures. Always found them more dangerous, more determined,. Also he had discovered that Bolden had never spoken of his past. To the people here he was a musician who arrived at the city at the age of twenty two. Webb had known him since fifteen. He could just as easily be wiping out his past again in a casual gesture, contemptuous. Landscape suicide. So perhaps the only clue to Bolden´s body was in Webb´s brain. Sleeping in childhood stories and now thrown into the future like an arrow. To be finished when they grew up. What was Bolden´s favorite story? Whose moments of terror did he want to witness, Webb thought as he began the third banana." (Coming Through Slaughter, pg 22)

“Bolden had no notion he was not coming back”
With the first sentence opening this paragraph, you could infer that Bolden planned things as he went along. He probably left Shell Beach and decided to go with what presented itself in his way and take a day a step at a time.

The narrator then explains that Webb thought of fast decisions like this “more dangerous, more determine”. Bolden probably decided to take these decision to escape something he was determined to avoid. Following this, the next sentence talks about Bolden never speaking of his past so maybe that rash and determined decision he took was taken to escape his past.

The next sentence then shows how others viewed him and then says that Webb had known him since fifteen making it easy to infer that the twenty two year old Bolden was not the same as the fifteen year old Bolden. In this quote you see the superficial idea people had of Bolden: “To the people here he was a musician who arrived at the city at the age of twenty two. Webb had known him since fifteen. He could just as easily be wiping out his past again in a casual gesture, contemptuous.”. Here it mentions his past again making it seem that if you didn’t know Bolden’s past, you didn’t understand him. With the word contemptuous, it just sounds as if Bolden didn’t have any care for his past life.

“Landscape suicide” must be referring to Bolden killing the superficial him that existed before along with all other superficial changes around him. The narrator then says “the only clue to Bolden’s body was in Webb’s brain” from which you could infer that Webb was one of the only people that knew about this change and he remembered the old Bolden.

“Sleeping in childhood stories and now thrown into the future like an arrow” must mean that Bolden had to grow up fast compared to Webb because he was “thrown” quicker into something other than childhood aka being an adult. In the next sentence it says that these childhood stories would be finished when they grew up which you could infer that while growing up, they never saw each other and didn’t finish the “story” they had started as children. It’s a chapter in their lives they weren’t together in.

Ending the paragraph, the quote, “What was Bolden’s favorite story? Who’s moment of terror did he want to witness…” , shows you how even if Webb had been with Bolden in the past, he didn’t really understand Bolden’s mind. He saw the change but didn’t really understand the outcome.