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
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