Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010178, Sun, 1 Aug 2004 18:24:14 -0700

Subject
Re: VN's synaesthesia for Blue
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Sunday, August 01, 2004 3:20 PM -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: Re: Re: VN's synaesthesia for Blue (fwd) (fwd)

------------------ Hello, Sandy
I had not thought about the shades of violet and lilac in association
with blue. But they must be close, since they belong to the end of the
spectrum - as Alyssa Pelish has reminded us.
There are too many references in VN to violet to quote them here,
although I remember them particularly in "Look at The Harlequins".
Perhaps this preference of VN´s also motivated the director of the movie
based on VN´s novel"Despair" ( with Dirk Bogarde) to choose a kind of Art
Dèco scenario almost entirely colored in shadesof lilac and blue.
Best,
Jansy


----- Original Message -----
From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2004 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: VN's synaesthesia for Blue (fwd) (fwd)


> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
> Date: Saturday, July 31, 2004 6:35 PM -0700
> From: Alyssa Pelish <hsilep@yahoo.com>
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Subject: Re: VN's synaesthesia for Blue (fwd)
>
>
> Dear Sandy,
>
> Don't know if you've already come across the following passage, but it
> seems somewhat relevant to your query, since hues of the
blue-indigo-violet
> end of the spectrum (or, of Roy G. Biv's surname, if you will) also
> predominate in VN's works:
>
> > From VN's lecture on Swann's Way:
>
> "The band of light was of a mauve color, the violet tint that runs through
> the whole book, the very color of time. This rose-purple mauve, a pinkish
> lilac, a violet flush, is linked in European literature with certain
> sophistications of the artistic temperament. [...] From this mauve to the
> delicate pink of hawthorns in the Combray chapters there are all kinds of
> shadings within Proust's flushed prism. [...] Notice, moreover, as a kind
> of exclamation mark punctuating the passage, the blue feather in the hat
of
> the girl's governess--which the boy's old nurse lacked" (241).
>
> (LECTURES ON LITERATURE. Ed. Fredson Bowers. New York: Harcourt Brace,
> 1980)
>
> Best of luck,
>
> Alyssa Pelish
>
> "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:
>
> -------------------
> Question:
> What is the color blue associated with in VN's works? Shade of blue are
> predominant in RLSK. All help appreciated.
>
> -Sandy Drescher
>
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
> EDNOTE. In VN-s color letter correspondences the blue group includes the
> "steely x," "thudercloud z, and huckleberry k. Q is "somewhat browner than
> k, while s is not the light blue of c, but a curious mixture of azure and
> mother of pearl." _SP, Memory_ II, 1. For Cyrillic correspondences, see
> Drugie berega.
> I, incidentally, published the first study of VN's synaethesia and its
> implications for the writer. See chpater I of my _Worlds in Regression._
> But to answer your question---I do not know that "blue" has a general
> "meaning" in VN or in RLSKn. Might repeat looking into.
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
> NABOKV-L
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
> NABOKV-L
>
>


---------- End Forwarded Message ----------



D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L