Mary Efremov “muscat grape refers to the smelly
seed of the gingko, shed in November”
Matt Roth:
..."as I read the poem, Shade is describing the color—the particular golden
hue—to which ginkgo leaves turn in fall, and this color is akin to the color of
ripe muscat grapes. Here’s a bunch:
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/cluster-ripe-muscat-grapes-11739032.jpg. If
one just removes the phrase “when shed” the line becomes more intelligible."
Carolyn Kunin: I am unable to find any
confirmation of your claim. Reference, please? Muscat grapes refer to the
muscatel variety, and only that so far as I am able to discover on my
own....btw, although edible and even medicinal the fruit of the g. biloba can be
poisonous if over-indulged in ...
Jansy Mello: Exploring the oriental origins of the word
"gingko" one of the hypotheses, presented online, relates the term to
"silver apricot." No varicolored muscat grapes in that!
I don't think that Mary Efremov was referring to the color
or taste of the gingko seed, but to its smell. I know from
experience that muscat grapes usually offer a sweet (not golden)
delicate fragrance to the palate, but I have no idea about the aroma
from the gingko "apricots.."
I enjoyed her suggestion, as I've already stated in another
post, because it helps us not to consider Nabokov's sentence only in terms
of shape, color or sound. He must be synesthetically and
senesthetically apprehended at times. In SO he describes the
rich smell of the dark earth and humid mushrooms, considering the particular way
Russian nostrils inflate and react.. Even if Mary's association proves
to be incorrect, somehow (?), her inclusion of the sense of smell as being
instrumental to understand VN's sensual images continue valid and important.
However, Nabokov may leave out taste and olfactory matters
altogether, as in ADA: "Space is related to our senses of
sight, touch, and muscular effort; Time is vaguely connected with hearing
(still, a deaf man would perceive the ‘passage’ of time incomparably better than
a blind limbless man would the idea of ‘passage’). ‘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’) in The Ambidextrous
Universe, page 165. Perhaps some fragrances are closer to the
spirit? (sometimes not! In Wingstroke there is a dog stench
emmanating from the brown furs of an angel's wings*).
.........................
* - Kern "was overwhelmed by an animal smell [
] he rejected with revulsion the smelly brown wings"...
btw: there's something in Kern's hallucinations that reminded me of Darren
Aronofsky's 2010 movie "Black Swan."
.