Nabokov, Synesthesia, and Bach’s Chaconne No. 5
I was reminded of synesthesia today when a good friend sent me a link to a wonderful reading of Nabokov’s “My Russian Education,” originally printed in the September 18, 1948 issue of The New Yorker. For some reason I associated this piece with Bach’s Chaconne No. 5, performed by Nathan Milstein.
Synesthesia is defined as the production of a sense impression to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. Nabokov is reported to have been a synesthete, which may have influenced his ability to use poetic language to link sensory experiences. I was particularly drawn to these lines in “My Russian Education”: “The electric light in my bedroom had a sullen, harsh, jaundiced tinge that made my eyes smart. Invariably I was confronted by some chunk of unfinished homework. ” I love the displacement of jaundice’s invariably yellow tinge from “my eyes” to “the electric light,” and the double entendre of “made my eyes smart” in relation to the chunk of unfinished homework.
If you permit me a bit of free association (at best) and a terrible transition (at worst), I’d like to offer my synesthesic experience of Bach’s Chaconne No. 5. I’m interested in how this piece simultaneously connects multiple, embodied sensory experiences (e.g. goosebumps or hard nipples) and invokes out-of-body (ecstatic, self-transcendent) experiences. I listen to this piece and feel its effect on different parts of my body while at the same time am transported outside my self.
I don’t have a connection ready to articulate between Nabokov and Bach, though I was amazed at how under Milstein’s expert hand, Bach’s piece sounds, to my mind, like Perlman’s rendition of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise.
