Subject
Re: TT-2 color of Ascot Hotel shutters (fwd)
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Hullo,
D. Barton Johnson's observations about the green/red shutters, valet/volet,
etc., are ingenious and probably correct: Yet another delightful instance
of Nabokov setting little intricately carved jewels into a novel that
delight his own artistically and linguistically non-pareil mind even though
he knows that no mere reader is ever likely to notice or appreciate them!
The green/red shutters effect also admits of another, less linguistic,
explanation: The shutters were in fact green at the time of his initial
visit to the hotel; between then and his subsequent visit, they have been
painted red. Hugh's mind is unsettled and offended by this because the
hotel has been "fixed" (like a pinned butterfly!) once and for all in the
medium of his memory as apple-green. Unfortunately, the material (or
"real") world is not fixed forever but constantly changes, and his mind can
exercise no control over that: The shutters "should" be green, forever, as
they persist in memory and as captured in art. But the phenomena of the
physical world are mutable and fleeting; this year the shutters are
undeniably cherry-red. Hugh can no more stop this than one could stop the
downflow of debris in a rocky avalanche.
Respectfully submitted,
Barry Warren
At 11:00 AM 7/9/2004, you wrote:
> ------------------
> From Jeff Edmunds <jhe2@psulias.psu.edu>:
>
>
>> 2. What do you make, if anything, of the "mnemoptical trick" re the
>> color of the Ascot Hotel?
>
> Our esteemed editor may recall this ancient (by Internet standards)
> message, originally posted to NABOKV-L on November 15, 1993. I will add
> only that I suspect color plays a significant role in TT, whose main
> character is Hugh [Hue] Person.
>
> _________
>
> NABOKOVIANS: Here is my full solution to the question I posed last week:
> What is the nature of the mnemoptical trick which causes Hugh Person, in
> chapter 2 of Transparent Things, to remember the hotel's cherry-red
> shutters as being apple green?
>
> Don Johnson, Ted Ficklen, and Jay Edelnant were all quick to point
> out that by the principle of Color Opponency, the color of an afterimage
> is the complimentary of the color of the object which caused it. Gene
> Barabtarlo emphasized that apple green (which tends more towards yellow
> than towards blue) is indeed the complimentary of magenta (or cherry red).
> All this explains perfectly the "optical" part of the trick. But what has
> memory to do with it? With respect to the "mnemo-" part of the
> trick, I offer the following solution:
> Our first small clue is the mention, in the chapter's first
> sentence, of a vowel switch: "Hugh Person ... pronounced 'Parson' by
> some". Also relevant, although its relevance become obvious only later,
> is the fact that Hugh speaks both English and French. In checking into
> the hotel, he uses both--this is, after all, Switzerland, and both
> languages are floating around in Person's head.
> It is in the first paragraph that we are told that the hotel
> "sported cherry-red shutters (not all of them shut) which by some
> mnemoptical trick he remembered as apple green." The minor mystery would
> end there were it not for the reappearance of the term "apple-green" in
> the chapter's final paragraph in the form of an "apple-green-aproned
> valet". (The valet has already appeared in paragraph 1, but the color of
> his apron is not then specified). Something funny's going on here. The
> mot-clef is "valet". Spelled and (very nearly) pronounced the
> same in English and in French, it is the word which opens, so to speak,
> the door between the English and French sections of Hugh's brain (and who
> better to open a door than a servant?) How does this relate to the hotel's
> shutters? "Shutter" in French is commonly rendered as "volet", which is
> only a vowel away (as Parson is from Person) from "valet". What's more,
> the valet is wearing an apple-green _apron_. Apron in French is
> "tablier", and "tablier" can also connote (as even the small French/
> English dictionary on my desk confirms) "flue-shutter; (iron or steel)
> shutter". In Person's Anglo-French brain the color associated with the
> valet's "tablier" is transferred to the hotel's "volets". The transfer is
> reinforced by the principle of Color Opponency and the happy coincidence
> that shutters and apron are of complimentary colors.
> So runs my explanation of this marvelous transposition of Hugh's.
>
>
>
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
> NABOKV-L
Barry Warren
<bwarren@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
642-5002
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
Hullo,
D. Barton Johnson's observations about the green/red shutters, valet/volet,
etc., are ingenious and probably correct: Yet another delightful instance
of Nabokov setting little intricately carved jewels into a novel that
delight his own artistically and linguistically non-pareil mind even though
he knows that no mere reader is ever likely to notice or appreciate them!
The green/red shutters effect also admits of another, less linguistic,
explanation: The shutters were in fact green at the time of his initial
visit to the hotel; between then and his subsequent visit, they have been
painted red. Hugh's mind is unsettled and offended by this because the
hotel has been "fixed" (like a pinned butterfly!) once and for all in the
medium of his memory as apple-green. Unfortunately, the material (or
"real") world is not fixed forever but constantly changes, and his mind can
exercise no control over that: The shutters "should" be green, forever, as
they persist in memory and as captured in art. But the phenomena of the
physical world are mutable and fleeting; this year the shutters are
undeniably cherry-red. Hugh can no more stop this than one could stop the
downflow of debris in a rocky avalanche.
Respectfully submitted,
Barry Warren
At 11:00 AM 7/9/2004, you wrote:
> ------------------
> From Jeff Edmunds <jhe2@psulias.psu.edu>:
>
>
>> 2. What do you make, if anything, of the "mnemoptical trick" re the
>> color of the Ascot Hotel?
>
> Our esteemed editor may recall this ancient (by Internet standards)
> message, originally posted to NABOKV-L on November 15, 1993. I will add
> only that I suspect color plays a significant role in TT, whose main
> character is Hugh [Hue] Person.
>
> _________
>
> NABOKOVIANS: Here is my full solution to the question I posed last week:
> What is the nature of the mnemoptical trick which causes Hugh Person, in
> chapter 2 of Transparent Things, to remember the hotel's cherry-red
> shutters as being apple green?
>
> Don Johnson, Ted Ficklen, and Jay Edelnant were all quick to point
> out that by the principle of Color Opponency, the color of an afterimage
> is the complimentary of the color of the object which caused it. Gene
> Barabtarlo emphasized that apple green (which tends more towards yellow
> than towards blue) is indeed the complimentary of magenta (or cherry red).
> All this explains perfectly the "optical" part of the trick. But what has
> memory to do with it? With respect to the "mnemo-" part of the
> trick, I offer the following solution:
> Our first small clue is the mention, in the chapter's first
> sentence, of a vowel switch: "Hugh Person ... pronounced 'Parson' by
> some". Also relevant, although its relevance become obvious only later,
> is the fact that Hugh speaks both English and French. In checking into
> the hotel, he uses both--this is, after all, Switzerland, and both
> languages are floating around in Person's head.
> It is in the first paragraph that we are told that the hotel
> "sported cherry-red shutters (not all of them shut) which by some
> mnemoptical trick he remembered as apple green." The minor mystery would
> end there were it not for the reappearance of the term "apple-green" in
> the chapter's final paragraph in the form of an "apple-green-aproned
> valet". (The valet has already appeared in paragraph 1, but the color of
> his apron is not then specified). Something funny's going on here. The
> mot-clef is "valet". Spelled and (very nearly) pronounced the
> same in English and in French, it is the word which opens, so to speak,
> the door between the English and French sections of Hugh's brain (and who
> better to open a door than a servant?) How does this relate to the hotel's
> shutters? "Shutter" in French is commonly rendered as "volet", which is
> only a vowel away (as Parson is from Person) from "valet". What's more,
> the valet is wearing an apple-green _apron_. Apron in French is
> "tablier", and "tablier" can also connote (as even the small French/
> English dictionary on my desk confirms) "flue-shutter; (iron or steel)
> shutter". In Person's Anglo-French brain the color associated with the
> valet's "tablier" is transferred to the hotel's "volets". The transfer is
> reinforced by the principle of Color Opponency and the happy coincidence
> that shutters and apron are of complimentary colors.
> So runs my explanation of this marvelous transposition of Hugh's.
>
>
>
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
> NABOKV-L
Barry Warren
<bwarren@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
642-5002
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L