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.