S.Klein sends
Review of
Wednesday is
Indigo Blue: Discovering the brain of synaesthesia by Richard E. Cytowic
and David M. Eagleman
29 May 2009 by Liz Else - Complete article
at the following URL:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227101.600-review-wednesday-is-indigo-blue.html?full=true#bx271016B1 Among
examples of synaesthesia, there is a quote from Vladimir Nabokov in
Speak, Memory: "...
As for the intensity of an orgasm,
it may give birth not only to geometric aberrations in the mind, but... to a
seemingly unending tunnel of pleasure through which one races in a crescendo of
sensation toward the ultimate release."
I could not help but to compare this description to Pale Fire's famous
misprint (Mountain-Fountain): "A system of cells
interlinked within/ Cells interlinked within cells interlinked/ Within one
stem. And dreadfully distinct/ Against the dark, a tall white fountain
played./ "
Or, as in "ADA", where Van
speaks about the body in relation to time and space, using his various
"senses" in synaesthesia*, with its corpuscles, and cells, and
throbbing veins...
PS: A tangential reference to Pale Fire:
John Shade's title for his poem, as he suggests, is inspired by "Will"
and the reader gets hints from Kinbote about the moon and "arrant thievery."
Nevertheless, Shade not only mentions "moondrops" (and a resource to magic)
but he also describes his poem as a "transparent thingum,"** thereby hinting at
something less solid than the moon itself...at its ghostly reflection
perhaps?
Checking on the almost universal derivation of a "non-descript
thing" into "thingum," I came across E.Allan Poe's story ( actually, Mr.
Thingum's autobiography): "LITERARY LIFE OF THINGUM BOB, ESQ.- Late Editor of
the "Goosetherumfoodle". Although, most probably, this thingum isn't
actually refered in "Pale Fire" ( its spirit is quite distinct), it shares a
number of items with VN's novel: a delusional poet and editor reporting his
story, a "botfly" ("gad-fly"), the barbering process and Poe, himself. As a
curiosity, perhaps, it deserves a mention in our List.
Excerpts:
"I AM now growing in years, and–since I
understand that Shakespeare and Mr. Emmons are deceased–it is not impossible
that I may even die. It has occurred to me, therefore, that I may as well retire
from the field of Letters and repose upon my laurels."
..............................
"My first moment of positive inspiration
must be dated from that ever-memorable epoch, when the brilliant conductor of
the "Gad-Fly," in the intervals of the important process just mentioned, recited
aloud, before a conclave of our apprentices, an inimitable poem in honor of the
"Only Genuine Oil-of-Bob" (so called from its talented inventor, my father), and
for which effusion the editor of the "Fly" was remunerated with a regal
liberality by the firm of Thomas Bob & Company,
merchant-barbers"
Edgar Allan Poe,1850
......................................................................................................................
* ‘Space is a swarming in the eyes, and Time a
singing in the ears,’ says John Shade, a modem poet, as quoted by an invented
philosopher (‘Martin Gardiner’) ..."
** - (But this transparent thingum does
require/ Some moondrop title. Help me,
Will! Pale
Fire.)