JM: “Also in Lolita we read how “ In and out of my heart flowed my rainbow blood.” (Lolita 1,28)  and the link between “rainbow” and “Rimbaud”  invites me to consider V.Nabokov’s attempt to render his experiences with synesthesia in an artistic way (and more ambitiously still).

Jansy Mello: I checked Alfred Appel Jr.’s notes and he mentioned “Rainbow/Rimbaud” in ch.18. (pg.371, 75/6) and in other chapters (cf. notes 163/6, 172/1, 250/7, and 278/1). He doesn’t link HH’s “rainbow blood” to the French poet, nor does he mention his synesthesia, focusing on other “Rimbaud’s echoes,” and valuing hints related to poems and his relationship with Verlaine. As he also notes, Humbert Humbert has written a book on “Rainbow.”

So, the present linkage of “blood” and “synesthesia” is not guaranteed by A. Appel. Nevertheless, for me, these lines serve to throw light on VN’s effort to deal artistically with his private altered vision of his surroundings -  such as we find them in S&S and in John Shade’s fits and heart problems – should they not be limited to his experiences with color synesthesia.*

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* Like “standing a metaphor on its head not for the sake of the trick’s difficulty, but in order to perceive an ascending waterfall or a sunrise in reverse: a triumph, in a sense, over the ardis of time.” (Ada 1,30)