Frances Assa [on S.Klein's
link to VN and synaesthesia]: "Regarding "Inside the
Mind of a Synaesthete" note the following sentence bringing us back, once again,
to apes and monkeys: "Researchers have learned that
even chimpanzees associate low notes with darker colors with
high notes with brighter ones."
JM: Fran Assa observes a return
to captive apes and monkeys in the link, carrying a report
from Nature (by Ewen Callaway) that she underlined:"Apes'
association of tones and shades may hold clues to human synaesthesia and
language. Chimpanzees meld sounds and colours, associating light objects with
high tones and dark objects with deeper tones[...].To determine whether humans
learn to associate sounds and colours from others, or whether they are innate
and do not require language, Ludwig searched for the associations in captive
chimpanzees."
How about a simian synaesthetic sense of smell
? In Ada, or Ardor, Van
notes that "Sounds have colors, colors have smells. The fire
of Lucette’s amber runs through the night of Ada’s odor and ardor, and stops at
the threshold of Van’s lavender goat." (p.419)
There are other types of sensorial associations
in Ada, now related to memory and to "family smells," "the
artistry of asymmetry" and "the strong charm of coincidence." (however, I
cannot understand what Van means):
1. "Her
[Lucette's] ember-bright hair flew into his face and
smelt of a past summer. Family smell; yes, coincidence: a set of coincidences
slightly displaced; the artistry of asymmetry."
2. "Hey, and here’s Alonso,
the swimming-pool expert. I met his sweet sad daughter at a Cyprian party — she
felt and smelt and melted like you. The strong charm of
coincidence’."
Lucette's
"amber" is related, among other things, to parfumerie*. I wonder if
her coloring also links her (in particular!) to the dirty unmentionable 'lammer' and to Van's
consistently avoiding her
(a) "hydrodynamic telephones and
other miserable gadgets that were to replace those that had gone k chertyam
sobach’im (Russian ‘to the devil’) with the banning of an unmentionable
‘lammer.’
p.25. lammer: amber (Fr: l’ambre), allusion to
electricity.
(b) " Van regretted that because
Lettrocalamity (Vanvitelli’s old joke!) was banned allover the world, its very
name having become a ‘dirty word’
p.118. Lettrocalamity:
a play on Ital. elettrocalamita, electromagnet./*
Watching Lucette's diving skills in
Ada, Van "put on his tinted glasses and watched her stand on the diving
board, her ribs framing the hollow of her intake as she prepared to ardis into
the amber. He wondered, in a mental footnote that might come handy some day, if
sunglasses or any other varieties of vision, which certainly twist our concept
of ‘space,’ do not also influence our style of speech." (isn't that a
return to synaesthesia?)
.
The reference to succinum or gum-stone, another
wiki-reference, carries me over to John Shade's "gum-logged ant"
in Pale Fire and to Kinbote's commentary.** Also in Pale
Fire there are alphabetical references that go "from
Amber to Zen" and a line by Shade that might be linked to Lucette's
dive (The amber spectacles for life’s
eclipse)
It seems that the significant "amber" can
carry VN readers a long long way -as this commentary that started
merely with a quote to Fran Assa, about color
smells. ..
...................................................................................................................
* Wikipedia carries an
etymologic explanation that confirms Darkbloom's and relates one of
its uses to parfumerie.
"Amber is fossilized tree resin (not sap), which has been appreciated
for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times.Amber is used as an
ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry...
The English word amber derives from the Arabic anbar, via Medieval Latin ambar
and Old French ambre. The word originally referred to a precious oil derived
from the Sperm whale (now called ambergris)[ ] The word ambar was brought
to Europe by the Crusaders....Amber is discussed by Theophrastus, possibly the
first historical mention of the material, in the 4th century BC. The Greek name
for amber was ηλεκτρον (elektron), "formed by the sun", and it was connected to
the sun god (Helios), one of whose titles was Elector or the Awakener.[6]
According to the myth, when Helios' son Phaëton was killed, his mourning sisters
became poplars, and their tears became the origin of elektron, amber.[7]
The
modern terms "electricity" and "electron" derive from the Greek word for amber,
and come from William Gilbert's research showing that amber could attract other
substances. The presence of insects in amber was noticed by Pliny the Elder in
his Naturalis Historia, and led him to theorize correctly that, at some point,
amber had to be in a liquid state to cover the bodies of insects. Hence he gave
it the expressive name of succinum or gum-stone..".
** As we were walking home the day she died,
An empty emerald case, squat and frog-eyed, Hugging the trunk; and its companion
piece, A gum-logged ant. (Shade, line 240). CK note to line 238
(empty emerald case) "The cigale’s companion piece, the
ant, is about to be embalmed in amber." (Kinbote
compressed ideas turning the cigale into the ant's companion piece:
the poem allows another interpretation)