Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0017824, Fri, 6 Mar 2009 18:01:04 -0300

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Re: [NABOKOV-L] [QUERY] Padus racemosa
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VF [to JM: Should the English reader synesthetically read "racemosa" and feel it in Russian?]: The English reader should (for a full-scale experience)...identify Cerasus racemosa (earlier, Padus racemosa) as a Russian 'cheremuha' species...bird cherry; Faulbeerbaum, Faulbeere (Germ.);merisier à grappes, putiet, putier (Fr.). then go to a Botanical Garden of their choice ...and smell the flowers. They are amazing. One cannot feel Russian literature in full (Turgenev especially) without seeing and smelling racemosa...Maybe soon we will have olfactory files for downloads, extension .olf ? The plant is also highly medicinal and antiseptic.The berries are somewhat edible, too, they go into pastries.This is your full synestethic experience. J This refers also to the famous VN's image of a ravine where Communists shot people, a ravine overgrown with racemosa that survived through Communist regime [Rossiya, zvezdy, noch' rasstrela i ves' v cheremuhe ovrag.]

JM: Cheremuha. With a lot of help for a full synesthetic experience from Victor - my most heart-felt thanks!
I tried wikiing but the information I retrieved here was not inspiring (foul smell, withering perennials, poor images) and lots of medical terms and illnesses mentioned to boot. I had to be on the wrong track ( associations, sounds, general feelings...). Now I must go abroad and find, see and smell this fluffy perfumed plant... I even wikied "padus" to reach the Italian river Po, river deities, Padua, "someone who walks on, paddles, flows", "father" ( & there were those haunting words Hazel had taken down: pada...pad.. as some kind of negative of racemosa...)


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