Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010173, Sun, 1 Aug 2004 10:05:29 -0700

Subject
Re: VN's synaesthesia for Blue (fwd) (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Saturday, July 31, 2004 6:35 PM -0700
From: Alyssa Pelish <hsilep@yahoo.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: VN's synaesthesia for Blue (fwd)


Dear Sandy,

Don't know if you've already come across the following passage, but it
seems somewhat relevant to your query, since hues of the blue-indigo-violet
end of the spectrum (or, of Roy G. Biv's surname, if you will) also
predominate in VN's works:

From VN's lecture on Swann's Way:

"The band of light was of a mauve color, the violet tint that runs through
the whole book, the very color of time. This rose-purple mauve, a pinkish
lilac, a violet flush, is linked in European literature with certain
sophistications of the artistic temperament. [...] From this mauve to the
delicate pink of hawthorns in the Combray chapters there are all kinds of
shadings within Proust's flushed prism. [...] Notice, moreover, as a kind
of exclamation mark punctuating the passage, the blue feather in the hat of
the girl's governess--which the boy's old nurse lacked" (241).

(LECTURES ON LITERATURE. Ed. Fredson Bowers. New York: Harcourt Brace,
1980)

Best of luck,

Alyssa Pelish

"D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:

-------------------
Question:
What is the color blue associated with in VN's works? Shade of blue are
predominant in RLSK. All help appreciated.

-Sandy Drescher


---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
EDNOTE. In VN-s color letter correspondences the blue group includes the
"steely x," "thudercloud z, and huckleberry k. Q is "somewhat browner than
k, while s is not the light blue of c, but a curious mixture of azure and
mother of pearl." _SP, Memory_ II, 1. For Cyrillic correspondences, see
Drugie berega.
I, incidentally, published the first study of VN's synaethesia and its
implications for the writer. See chpater I of my _Worlds in Regression._
But to answer your question---I do not know that "blue" has a general
"meaning" in VN or in RLSKn. Might repeat looking into.


D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

---------- End Forwarded Message ----------



D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L