Jim Twiggs: I agree with Sam
Schuman that this is a curious thread (to which he has added the use of the term
“green room” in theatrical parlance). Curious or not, it’s perhaps worth noting
that the most significant mention of the color green in Pale Fire is surely in
the following passage..."Looking in it for symbols...green is the symbol of
happiness and frustration.' " ...But of the green doors, was it VN or SF who
said that sometimes green is just a color and a door is just a
door?
JM: I'm too green for
so much pigment ( does SF stands for a viennese Science Fiction?). Green is
not only the label of a color (light and substance). It is a word, sonorous, a
signifier. How does it seem to arise in multilingual Nabokov? I
remember the sensuous pleasure he derived when reading his poem "Esmeralda"
(echoes in Gerald Emerald). Green-Grün. Vert(French)-vert-vert,vers,verre,vair
(vrai). Verdant, verdure. Viridate,viridescence . (Virile? Viral?)
We can find all these "variants" in Nabokov. Viridate
was used at least twice in his early work, although "green" as such is mentioned
less often than orange and purple and violet.