Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0022640, Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:55:32 -0300

Subject
Colorful curiosities
From
Date
Body
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"!





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* - "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)


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