Dear Viateur, I am familiar with Huysmans' chapter on orchids. Colette's I havent read yet.
Huysmans: "This admirable artistry (artificial flowers) had long enthralled him, but now he dreamt of collecting another kind of flora: tired of artificial flowers aping real ones, he wanted some natural flowers that would look like fakes. He aplied his mind to this problem, but did not have to search for long or go far afield, seeing that his house was in the very heart of the district that attracted all the great flower-growers. He was straight off to visit the hothouses of Châtillon and the valley of Aunay, coming home tired out and thinking of nothing but the varities he had bought, haunted all the while by the memories of bizarre and magnificent blooms. Two days later, the wagons arrived. List in hand, Des Esseintes called the roll, checking his purchases one by one. ... and the Cypripedium, with its complex, incoherent contours devised by some demented draughtsman. It looked rather like a clog or a tidy, and on top was a human tongue bent back with the string stretched tight, just as you may see it depicted in the plates of medical works dealing with diseases of the throat and mouth; two little wings, of a jujube red, which completed this baroque combination of the undersides of a tongue, the color of wine lees and slate, and a glossy pocket case with a lining that oozed drops of viscous paste. He could not take his eyes off this unlikely-looking orchid from India, and the gardners, irritated by these delays began reading out themselves the labels stuck in the pots they were bringing in. ... Then he noticed that there was still one name left on his list, the Cattleya of New Granada. They pointed out to him a little winged bell-flower of a pale lilac, an almost imperceptible mauve; he went up, put his nose o it, and started back-- for it gave out a smell of varnished deal, a toy-box smell that brought back horrid memories of New Year's Day when he was a child. He decided he had better be wary of it, and almost regretted having admitted among all his scentless plants he possessed this orchid with its unpleasantly reminiscent odour." ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 11:01 PM Subject: [OGD] Orchids and literature > Thanks Marianna for your post with quotes by Kant, Freud and Proust about > orchids. > > If I was familiar with Proust's "La Memoire du Temps Perdu / Un amour de > Swann", the other authors' quotes are new to me. > > Did you find them with a Google query ? > > You could find additional quotes by Colette and Huysmans in a book > (actually an exhibition catalogue) titled "Vanilles & Orchidees". > > I presume you are familiar with the book written by Luigi Berliocchi, "The > Orchid in Lore and Legend". > The author discusses the place of orchids "in the arts from literature and > magic to cuisine"... > > see : > > http://www.timberpress.com/books/isbn.cfm/0-88192-616-7 > > ******* > Regards, > > Viateur > > > _______________________________________________ > the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com > _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com