The first entries I found underlined in my copy of
Don B. Johnson's "Worlds in
Regression", concerning the Index in SM, were in Section One,
chapter "The alphabetic rainbows of Speak,Memory" ( pages 19/21).
I selected a paragraph that answers
in part W. Dane's question:
"We initiated our discussion of color spectra
by suggesting a connection with synesthesia. There is, of course, no necessary
tie between the two phenomena. The association is justified only insofar as we
can show them to be linked in Nabokov's mind. THE EXPANDED 1966 ENGLISH VERSION
OF NABOKOV'S MEMOIRS 9 BUT NOT THE EARLIER ENGLISH OR RUSSIAN VARIANTES0 HAS AN
INDEX WHICH IS, AT CERTAIN POINTS, AS MUCH AESTHETIC AS PRACTICAL... We find,
among others, the following: Colored hearing, STained glass, Jewels and
Pavilion, as well as Magic Lantern and Mushrooms. Most of the constituent
elements which enter into the rainbow motif are given, althourh there is no
index entry for Rainbow...The reader qho consults Colored hearing is referrred
to Stained glass and thence to Jewels and Pavilion. The Jewels entry, via cross
reference, leads the reader back to Stained glass... The associational chain
establishes the connection between the elements of the rainbow motif and
synesthesia...".
Note 22, on páge 44, brings additional
information of great interest.
In DBJ's introduction he describes how each
"Nabokov novel contains at least two fictive worlds. This "two world"
model accounts ( in a formal sense) for much of what happens in many Nabokov
novels. It describes their underlying cosmology..."
This matter, as it is developed along his
book, reminds us that the doubling found in R.L.Stevenson's J&H novel
is not as central to Pale Fire as Carolyn Kunin suggests, since it fits into a
more general pattern of a "two world model ..and underlying
cosmology"... In that sense, probably "J&H" are only one more
item instead of definite clues for the plot of PF.
Jansy
Mello