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Vladimir Nabokov, Alphabet in Color
Jean Holabird's unique interpretation of the alphabets of literary great, Vladimir Nabokov, is a visual masterpiece. Nabokov has synesthesia, a condition that causes the neurological mixing of the senses so that people who have this condition may hear colors, see sounds, and taste sensations, responses common but not exclusive to autism and the effects of hallucinogenic drugs. Nabokov, in a delightful passage in his autobiographical tour de force, "Speak Memory," claims that he himself "presented a fine case of colored hearing." While playing with alphabet blocks as a child he discovered that the colors were all 'wrong' and later described the phenomenon as follows: "the color sensation seems to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline." Of all the blocks he had played with none matched the color of his expectations. In this superb new book, artist Jean Holabird masterfully brings to life the charming and vibrant synesthetic colored letters, that up until now, only existed in Nabokov's great mind.
- GenresNonfictionArt
48 pages, Hardcover
First published January 30, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
Want to read
March 20, 2007As soon as I get some money...
May 7, 2008
I love the passage in Nabokov's Speak, Memory about his synesthesia (a mixing of the senses in which he associates letters with colors). Jean Holabird has done something obvious, but quite wonderful: she's made an alphabet arranged by his colors. The watercolors could frankly be lovelier (I don't always agree with her interpretations of Nabokov's description), but the idea is charming. I wish I'd thought of it, but I'm glad this exists.
June 11, 2012
This book...I can stare at this for short stretches of time. It drives me a little bit mad in the best possible way. Colour, letters, words, Nabokov, even stringing those together on a line makes my brain tingle. I'd say this book is my form of gemstones. I take it out and hold it up to the light when I want to be dazzled.
October 10, 2007
this book made me sad, particularily because it was something that i had the idea for a year or so before this was published. not too heavy on the content, and not too heavy on the research, but it is still a pretty book.
the binding, cover, and paper is all excellent.
the binding, cover, and paper is all excellent.
September 3, 2024
this is great! and pulls out a really interesting aspect of Nabokov's creative process – his visual, coloured conceptualisation of letters – perhaps explaining why his prose is so luscious.
January 23, 2020
Rating this book two stars solely for the foreword by Brian Boyd. Aside from Nabokov's actual quotes about how he perceives letters and colors, I found Alphabet in Color to be fairly pointless. It could have been a real imaginative attempt to bring Nabokov's synesthesia to the page in beautiful colors, but it was simply an alphabet book instead. It would be better off as an art exhibit.
July 30, 2013
This book is such a great idea. Fans of Nabokov will know he is probably literature's most famous synesthete. He perceived letters not just in black and white on the page, but in colors. The capital letter "Z" was, according to the author, "thundercloud blue." A capital "B" was "sienna red." Etc.
For those of us who live with monochrome letters, it's hard to imagine how this trait affected his writing. Even for other people with visual synesthesia, it's a somewhat dubious proposition, as he might have seen things just a little differently than they. We can imagine, but we cannot perceive.
Regardless of the particulars, it's important to recognize that putting words on the page was for him a colorful process, and much more dynamic than most people can probably comprehend. Careful readers can pick up on it from time to time. It's hard for us to see what Nabokov saw when he named the place from which Humbert Humbert picks up Lolita "Camp Q" in Lolita. However, because he wrote that "...a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see q as browner than k" we should expect that it does have some sort of quality to him, and that choice was purposeful. After all, he could have named it "Camp D" or "Camp L" or "The Safari Farm" for that matter.
In fact, to Nabokov, the letters spelling "Camp Q" went light blue, black, pink, pale green, brown.
What does that mean for Humbert Humbert, Lolita, or even Nabokov? I wish I knew. I just can't be certain. I don't see the words on the page the way he did, and I can't be sure what a lifetime of seeing words in such colors would do to my perception of language. From time to time we get glimpses of the color behind the prose as we read his work, but no matter how we strain, we just... can't... quite... see.... We are simply on the wrong side of the prism where everything is black or white. He's on the side where the light has split, and the spectrum revealed. No matter how we try, we're just not going to get there from here, and we can't know how putting his words through that prism affected the prose.
But it's important to know that he knew, and that makes a book like this one worth having a look at. It gives us a hint as to how he saw the world. For those who follow his work with anything more than a casual interest, it's a must see, and for those who aren't dedicated followers, it's still an interesting project.
Granted, it's a somewhat gimmicky presentation of Nabokov's perception. The letters are presented in watercolors; they are artistic interpretations of his descriptions of the letters, not a scientific or even direct attempt to recreate Nabokov's view of language. However, this is not meant to be anything like an objective recreation. In the long run, I don't think that's a bad thing. I suspect Nabokov would not have enjoyed something clinical.
The watercolors are captioned with quotes from a short piece by Nabokov explaining them and that text is reproduced at the back of the book. The book is bound in a three-fold black hardcover with Nabokov imprinted, in black, on the front fold. Cute choices there....
The introduction by Brian Boyd does a great job describing the ideas and Nabokov himself. A careful reader will likely ask more questions than are answered by either Mr. Boyd's prose or Ms. Holabird illustrations. However, we'll just have to put that down to the nature of the beast on this one. Nabokov is that mystery-riddle-conundrum package all baked up in a rebus pie and served with a side of amazing, and that's pretty much the point. The questions are as good as the answers.
For those of us who live with monochrome letters, it's hard to imagine how this trait affected his writing. Even for other people with visual synesthesia, it's a somewhat dubious proposition, as he might have seen things just a little differently than they. We can imagine, but we cannot perceive.
Regardless of the particulars, it's important to recognize that putting words on the page was for him a colorful process, and much more dynamic than most people can probably comprehend. Careful readers can pick up on it from time to time. It's hard for us to see what Nabokov saw when he named the place from which Humbert Humbert picks up Lolita "Camp Q" in Lolita. However, because he wrote that "...a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see q as browner than k" we should expect that it does have some sort of quality to him, and that choice was purposeful. After all, he could have named it "Camp D" or "Camp L" or "The Safari Farm" for that matter.
In fact, to Nabokov, the letters spelling "Camp Q" went light blue, black, pink, pale green, brown.
What does that mean for Humbert Humbert, Lolita, or even Nabokov? I wish I knew. I just can't be certain. I don't see the words on the page the way he did, and I can't be sure what a lifetime of seeing words in such colors would do to my perception of language. From time to time we get glimpses of the color behind the prose as we read his work, but no matter how we strain, we just... can't... quite... see.... We are simply on the wrong side of the prism where everything is black or white. He's on the side where the light has split, and the spectrum revealed. No matter how we try, we're just not going to get there from here, and we can't know how putting his words through that prism affected the prose.
But it's important to know that he knew, and that makes a book like this one worth having a look at. It gives us a hint as to how he saw the world. For those who follow his work with anything more than a casual interest, it's a must see, and for those who aren't dedicated followers, it's still an interesting project.
Granted, it's a somewhat gimmicky presentation of Nabokov's perception. The letters are presented in watercolors; they are artistic interpretations of his descriptions of the letters, not a scientific or even direct attempt to recreate Nabokov's view of language. However, this is not meant to be anything like an objective recreation. In the long run, I don't think that's a bad thing. I suspect Nabokov would not have enjoyed something clinical.
The watercolors are captioned with quotes from a short piece by Nabokov explaining them and that text is reproduced at the back of the book. The book is bound in a three-fold black hardcover with Nabokov imprinted, in black, on the front fold. Cute choices there....
The introduction by Brian Boyd does a great job describing the ideas and Nabokov himself. A careful reader will likely ask more questions than are answered by either Mr. Boyd's prose or Ms. Holabird illustrations. However, we'll just have to put that down to the nature of the beast on this one. Nabokov is that mystery-riddle-conundrum package all baked up in a rebus pie and served with a side of amazing, and that's pretty much the point. The questions are as good as the answers.
June 27, 2009
Not really a read, but a fun book if you are fascinated with Synesthesia. The only disorder(I'd argue it isn't) that I would like to have, Synesthesia is the layering of scenes. Nabokov had Synesthesia and for him, the sound of certain letters would provoke visions of color. The book covers his telling of the colors he would see, simply and visually. I was familiar with Synesthesia before I read this, and I was still surprised by the specificity of some of the sounds and the colors they brought on.
A good flip though when you have half an hour to kill to think about what life could be like if sound actually produced color.
A good flip though when you have half an hour to kill to think about what life could be like if sound actually produced color.
March 18, 2009
For Nabokophiles only.
Want to read
January 14, 2010Yes I am already giving it five stars even though I have not yet read it. Speak, memory! And talk to us about the limpid idiosyncracies of synaesthesia.
May 24, 2010
Boyd's short introduction is, as always, delightful. The book itself is a charming rendition of Nabokov's synesthesia; however, some of the images are not how I would picture them.
January 14, 2009
BEAUTIFUL.
God, if only I were synesthetic, too.
God, if only I were synesthetic, too.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews