Table of Contents Foreword by Dr. Peter Grossenbacher of the National Institute of
Mental Health:"More than a Curiosity: Synesthesia, Science and
Society"
Prologue - "The differences between men are
profound..."
Chapter 1 - "Colors hide within everything, including the
night."
Chapter 2 - "A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue, Some day
I'll crack your nascent origins."
Chapter 3 - "....perfumes, colors,
sounds answer each other."
Chapter 4 - "In life, so much depends on the
question, 'do you see what I see?'"
Chapter 5 - "It will be seen in the
end how greatly metaphysicians and psychologists err"
Chapter 6 - "If man
is a being afloat in an ocean of vibrations, then..."
Chapter 7 - "For
lack of attention, a thousand forms of loveliness elude us..."
Chapter 8
- "To teach the unfamiliar, set it in the world of the familiar"
Chapter
9 - "The scraps of memory that stay with us after a dream..."
Chapter 10
- Time is Space
Chapter 11 - "The Internet was made for
synesthetes"
According to author Patricia Duffy, Rimbaud, Richard Feyman,
Franz Lizst, David Hockney, and Vladimir Nabokov had more in common than just
genius. Duffy believes that each of these extraordinary men experienced a
condition known as synesthesia, a crossing of the senses. For example, Lizst saw
colored notes; Feynman, colored numbers. This study of the relation between
perception and creativity will help move you past the dividing lines of the
senses. Before you finish this fascinating book, you'll be seeing music and
sounding words.
Imagine a world in which words have colors and sounds
have tastes. In his autobiography, Vladimir Nabokov described this
neurological phenomenon, which helped inspire David Hockney's sets for the
Metropolitan Opera. Richard Feynman experienced it while formulating the
quantum theory that won him a Nobel Prize.
Sometimes described as a
blending of perceptions, synesthesia occurs when only one of the fives senses is
aroused but two respond. Journalist Patricia Lynne Duffy draws from her own
struggles and breakthroughs with synesthesia to help us better understand the
condition, while describing some of the major theories surrounding
it.
From Publishers Weekly Synesthesia,
the phenomenon whereby one sense is stimulated and another also responds i.e.,
when words have colors or tastes have shapes is not newly discovered (Rimbaud,
Liszt and Nabokov were famously synesthetic), but the condition has hardly been
discussed, much less systematically researched. Scientists think it may occur
when language centers in the brain mingle among some of the visual processing
sites in the cerebral cortex. Duffy, a synesthete herself, endeavors to bring
attention to this fascinating type of perception and raises some questions. Is
it, for instance, genetically transmitted? The Nabokov family would make it seem
so. Why do many children (one half to one third of whom are synesthetic) lose
the facility once abstract language takes over? Will knowing more about
synesthesia improve the human condition? Instead of attempting to answer these
questions through scientific knowledge, Duffy is intent on describing the
experiences of famous synesthetes: chapters on lesser-known composers and
artists whose creativity is fueled by synesthesia are less compelling than, say,
the passage on David Hockney's peculiarly striking relationship to color.
Feel-good spiels are kept to a minimum, although Duffy occasionally lapses into
reverence for her subjects' profundity, creativity or spirituality. (Nov. 6)
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business
Information.