Synesthesia
Synesthesia in Culture
A Mango-Shaped Space
By Wendy Mass, 2003
The novel A Mango-Shaped Space is an inspiring and heart-warming tale of young Mia Winchell. Author Wendy Mass takes the typical coming-of-age tale and puts an unusual twist upon it, giving the heroine grapheme-color and sound-color synesthesia, a condition she keeps a secret from everyone around her. After being forced to reveal her synesthesia because of problems at school, Mia learns to develop an understanding and appreciation for her condition.
This book has been critiqued by many editorials, but the overall review of the book is positive: aside from a few underdeveloped character relationships, the book provides a fairly accurate representation of someone living with synesthesia (Mass, 2003). Below are a few interesting quotes from A Mango-Shaped Space, where Mia talks about her synesthesia:
"Normally an x is a shiny maroon color, like a ripe cherry. But here an x has to stand for an unknown number. But I can't make myself assign the x any other color than maroon, and there are no maroon-colored numbers. . . . I'm lost in shades of gray and want to scream in frustration." (pg 33)
(Mass, 2003)
"Everyone thinks I named him Mango because of his orange eyes, but that's not the case. I named him Mango because the sounds of his purrs and his wheezes and his meows are all various shades of yellow-orange, like a mango in different seasons" (pg 17)
(Mass, 2003)
"Beth grunts and turns her back to us. We continue making the lemonade and leave her to her sorcery.
When we are alone again, I ask Zack, 'Does the yellow of this lemon remind you of anything?'
'Huh? Like what?'
'Oh, I don't know. Like the letter a or the number four?'
He stops midstir. 'What are you talking about?'
'Never mind.'" (pg 28)
(Mass, 2003)
Fantasia
1940, Walt Disney Productions
This film was built on the idea of sound-to-sight correlation, specifically adapting classical songs into animated images. The scene Toccata and Fugue in D Minor has been regarded by many synesthetes as a reasonable adaptation of what it is like to see sound (Cytowic & Eagleman, 2009).
Speak, Memory
Vladimir Nabokov
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Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian novelist who experienced audio-color synesthesia. Nabokov is most commonly known for his world famous novel Lolita, which is regarded as having many types of synesthetic metaphors, but in his autobiography Speak, Memory, Nabokov goes into detail describing his synesthesia (Duffy, 2001):
". . . a French a evokes polished ebony. This black group [of letters] also includes hard g (vulcanized rubber) and y (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o take care of the whites. I am puzzled by my French on which I see as the brimming tension-surface of alcohol in a small glass. Passing on to the blue group, there is steely x, thundercloud z, and huckleberry k. . . . I hasten to complete my list before I am interrupted. In the green group, there are alder-leaf f, the unripe apple of p, and pistachio t. Dull green, combined somehow with violet, is the best I can do for w. The yellows comprise various e's and i's, creamy d, bright golden y and u, whose alphabetical value I can express only by "brassy with an olive sheen." In the brown group, there are the rich, rubbery tone of soft g, paler j, and the drab shoelace of h. Finally, among the reds, b has the tone called burnt sienna by painters, m is a fold of pink flannel, and today I have at last perfectly matched v with "Rose Quartz" in Maerz and Paul's Dictionary of Color. . . ." - (quote taken from Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens by Patricia Duffy)
