In Didier Machu 's article
Apollo and Dionysus in Lolita, we read: "... 'I see q as browner than
k” (SM, 35): do Nabokov’s colored hearing and its synaesthetic phonetics
introduce the latter meaning into Q’s name? Like Lolita’s clothes – 'brown coat'
(180/203) and 'brown cap' (187/212) for which Mrs. Schiller substitutes 'a
brown, sleeveless cotton dress' (269/307) , 'that thin brown stuff' (271/309) –
Quilty’s trousers are brown, incongruously so on a tennis court (235/268), and,
when Lolita hastily exchanges information with him from the car, he wears
'dark-brown trousers' (218/247) and 'an oatmeal coat'.” Here Didier Machu
emphasizes Lolita's earthy "brownness" in contrast to Quilty's.
There are many points that "Lolita" and "ADA"
share in respect to colors. In ADA, it's Lucette who's always
associated to green and, sometimes, to furry reds. Later, both she and her
half-sister Ada protect themselves under lustrous dark felts. Ada, as a
young girl, favored black-and-white clothes, matching her raven-black hair and
pale skin Later, there are references to low-cut silk black gowns
with an isolated crimson cotton dress.
Lucette's greens are often associated
with her eyes and only once with
a nightdress.*
.
Leafing through the first chapter of
"Pnin" to follow the description of his discreet clothes (with the
exception of his socks and tie),**I realized that Nabokov mostly details the
textures of the fabric, the tweed and cotton. In other
chapters Pnin gains a green muffler, a brown suit and a blue
coat. Nevertheless the rainbow richness
of the world,its earth, flowers and butterflies, seldom
extends onto human clothing. Clare Bishop's and Liza Wind's elegant dresses
are dove-grey. Opalescent surfaces,
mouldy moist grounds, leafy woods and blooming lilacs, flamboyant
butterflies and orange-violet sunsets are "varicolored" in tints that are
sparsely applied when it comes to dressing his characters in other than
greys,blacks and whites.
Nabokov's palette doesn't produce uniform or
flat surface-colors, they seem to be something that radiates away from satiny
folds or rough wool. Human clothing, somehow, seem to deserve a lesser
place among everything else that needs to be observed in
great detail. His intricate patterns must be unrelated to "haute
couture"!
...............................................................................
* - "Ada carried an untidy bunch of wild flowers. She
wore a white frock with a black jacket and there was a white bow in her long
hair. He never saw that dress again and when he mentioned it in retrospective
evocation she invariably retorted that he must have dreamt it, she never had one
like that, never could have put on a dark blazer on such a hot day, but he stuck
to his initial image of her to the last."[ ] Van saw Lucette
wearing "a flowery dress which got mixed with the flowers
[she] carried because [she]moved so fast — jumping out of a green calèche and up
into the Ausonian Express."; [Van] "could describe
her [Lucette's] dress only as struthious (if there existed copper-curled
ostriches), accentuating as it did the swing of her stance..."
**
- (PNIN) His sloppy socks were of scarlet wool with
lilac lozenges; his conservative black Oxfords had cost him about as much as all
the rest of his clothing (flamboyant goon tie included) 2. Pnin ...walked down,
clad in a new navy-blue bathrobe and wearing on his bare feet a pair of ordinary
rubber over-shoes...;3.for the reception of his guests, a sybaritic smoking
jacket of blue silk, with tasselled belt and satin lapels... This jacket he wore
with a pair of old tuxedo trousers; 4. Komarov, in a sky-blue shirt, bent over
the guitar he was tuning; 5 Joan... noticed Pnin, in a green sweater, standing
in the doorway ...;6.his large, Duchess of Wonderland chin would firmly press
against the crossed ends of his green muffler to hold it in place on his
chest...[ ]The office where Zol. Fond Lit. now lay, partly enveloped
in Pnin's green muffler, on the filing case.;7. Pnin killed the motor and sat
beaming at his friends. The collar of his green sport shirt was undone;
8.Cockerell, brown-robed and sandalled, let in the cocker; 9.Pnin put on his new
brown suit (paid for by the Cremona lecture) and....[
]'Incidentally,' she said,... 'you know, Timofey, this brown suit of yours is a
mistake: a gentleman does not wear brown.' 10. Victor ...his striped tie
dangling out of the front of his grey jacket, his bulky grey flannelled knees
parted, zestfully opened the book; 11.Laurence, fatter than ever, dressed in
nice grey flannels, sank into the easy chair and immediately grabbed the first
book at hand; 12. I had not seen her for a fortnight when...she waylaid me
...looking svelte and strange in a charming new dress as dove-grey as Paris, and
wearing a really enchanting new hat with a blue bird's wing"
(nb: the
sentences are in disorder)