Sandy Klein: http://healthnew.us/2010/11/%E2%80%9Cunquenchable-russia%E2%80%9D-or-forbidden-themes-in-nabokov%E2%80%99s-prose/ “Unquenchable Russia”, or Forbidden Themes
in Nabokov’s Prose...N
ovember 2nd, 2010 ... “…What I
feel to be the real modern world is the world the artist creates, his own
mirage, which becomes a new mir (“world” in Russian) by the very act of his
shedding, as it were, the age he lives in” . ... The art of writing is a futile
business if it does not imply first of all the art of seeing the world as the
potentiality of fiction” ...Nabokov denied a work of art any kind of “truth”
aside from artistic one...
S.Klein: :
http://theschooloflife.typepad.com/the_school_of_life/2010/11/dear-bibliotherapist-1.html "...Following your conversion to the world of audio literature,
turn now to what seems from your letter to be an unfamiliar pursuit: read a
novel. One of the most intensely musical novels I have read is Lolita by
Vladimir Nabokov. “Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps
down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” Nabokov wrote in
English with a poetic awareness of the language that few native speakers have
ever surpassed, in prose at least. Treat the experience of reading the book as
something similar to absorbing a tragic opera."
JM: I'll soon start
to believe in book-fairies, or in André Breton's surrealistic
theories, which assert that "the real world and the dream world
are one and the same," as it was described on the back page of a dismantled poche-edition of Breton's "Les Vases
Communicants."
Opening Breton's book at random, I
happened on a line about a violet-eyed Russian, named Olga, which
he related to Rimbaud's poem "Voyelles" ( "O l'Oméga, rayon violet de
Ses Yeux."). And to my delight, I discovered a fresh reference to
eye-color and to Havelock Ellis.
Unfortunately Breton didn't mention where
in H. Ellis was the report about a research pursued by a certain Urbantschtisch
in connection to synesthesia (chromestaesia),audition and the music of
words.
Google led me to three titles and
links which might be of interest to the Nab-List to add to those mentioned
by Brian Moyd in Jean Holabird's book ( Vladimir Nabokov, Alphabet in
Color).
1. - THE USE OF COLOR IN LITERATURE A Survey of Research by S Skard -
1946
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society ©
1946
American
Philosophical Society.
An experimental attempt to produce artificial chromasthesia by the
technique of the conditioned response. Originally published in Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 17[3], pages 315-41, 1934
By E. Lowell Kelly
Excerpt: In 1843, Gautier published additional descriptions of
persons with tendencies toward chromaesthesia. Of greater significance was his
report of being able to produce artificially these false color sensations by the
use of the drug, hasheesh. This is particularly interesting since Havelock
Ellis records a similar tendency to artificial synaesthesia as one of the
effects of the drug, mescal or peyote.Probably the most interesting case study
of chromaesthesia reported is that of Nussbaumer...Anyone interested in reading
descriptions of such cases can readily locate them by reference to the extensive
bibliographies available. That of Mahling contains 550 titles and
Argelander gives 466 titles.
Cf. Ellis, Havelock, Mescal: A study of
a divine plant, Popular Science Monthly, 1902, 61, 52-71.; Kaiser, H.,
Assoziation der Worte mit Farben, f. Augenheilkunde, 1882, II, 96.; Krohn, W.
O., Pseudo-chromaesthesia or the association of colors with words, letters, and
sounds, Mmes. Jour. of Psych., 1892, 5, 20-41. And more...