Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds [Paperback]

Patricia Lynne Duffy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0805071873 | ISBN-13: 978-0805071870

Imagine a world in which words have colors and sounds have tastes. In his autobiography, Vladimir Nabokov described this neurological phenomenon, which helped inspire David Hockney's sets for the Metropolitan Opera. Richard Feynman experienced it while formulating the quantum theory that won him a Nobel Prize.

Sometimes described as a blending of perceptions, synesthesia occurs when only one of the fives senses is aroused but two respond. Journalist Patricia Lynne Duffy draws from her own struggles and breakthroughs with synesthesia to help us better understand the condition, while describing some of the major theories surrounding it.

An illuminating examination of the world of synesthetes, Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens is a must-read for science and health buffs, as well as for artists, writers, and creative thinkers-or anyone generally intrigued by the brain, the senses, and perception.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

What's a "synesthete"? It's a person in whom more than one sense responds when a single sense is stimulated. Research suggests that one in 2,000 people experience synesthesia; for Duffy, letters (and the words they combine to produce) have color (hence, Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens ). It took technology like PET scans to confirm the unusual brain patterns of synesthesia, but some artists of the past--Liszt, Rimbaud, and Nabokov, for example--seem to have experienced it. Duffy describes her own experience and that of several contemporary artists in examining this phenomenon as a special case of the "personal coding" scientists now recognize as a vital aspect of brain development. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A fun and worthwhile read. Whether you're a nonsynesthete amused by colored words and shapely smells or a synesthete annoyed with the notion of 'cat' being a blue word (when it's clearly brown), either way you'll shake your head and marvel."--Salon.com

"A thought-provoking glimpse at how much is lurking in other people's minds-- and how little we know about it."--Detroit Free Press

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805071873
• ISBN-13: 978-0805071870
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #971,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SEEING THE COLORS OF WORDS; FEELING THE TASTES OF SHAPES, January 12, 2003

By 

Rosalind Palermo Stevenson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book. Seeing the colors of the letters of the alphabet; feeling the shapes of the tastes of different foods-these are examples of synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon that produces a "blending" or "combining" of sensory responses. Author, Patricia Lynne Duffy, a synesthete herself, uses her own experiences as the point of departure to take the reader on a journey that deftly illustrates the pervasiveness of this way of perceiving in the world and raises many deeply philosophical and sociological questions.
In Ms. Duffy's young childhood, her father discovered that synesthesia existed as a documented neurological condition after he went searching for an answer as to why his daughter saw each of the letters of the alphabet in a specific color. Ms. Duffy's book moves from these intimate and extremely touching early synesthetic recollections into the broad and fascinating subject of synesthesia in the world at large. The book is a feast for the mind. We learn that the French symbolist poets Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Gautier were synesthetes. As is world-renowned painter David Hockney who uses the colors he sees in his syesthetic perceptions in his paintings. As does artist, Carol Steen. But even non-synesthetic artists such as Paul Klee and Georgia O'Keefe employed "techniques of transforming" that belong to the "blended" or "combined" sensory perceptions of the synesthetic experience.
In exploring her subject, Patricia Duffy has given us a rich compilation of information that touches on almost every discipline: the arts, science, the brain, health, philosophy, religion. But most fascinating to this reader is the fundamental question that the book raises about the very nature of perception itself. As Dr. Peter Grossenbacher from the National Institute of Mental Health points out at the beginning of his foreword to the book, "William James, the father of American experimental psychology, observed that each mind has its own way of perceiving the world." How are we to regard this uniqueness of individual perception when as Ms. Duffy points out, "In life so much depends on the question, do you see what I see? that most basic of queries that binds human beings socially." And even among synesthetes, each person has their own individual synesthetic perception, the color of one synesthete's letter A, for example being different from another's. Perhaps the most intriguing idea of all that Ms. Duffy's book puts forth is in her wonderful chapter entitled, Everything Fights For Its Survival-Even A Perception: "Like every other living thing on this earth, a personal perception of reality, too, will fight for its survival. And, as with every other living thing on this earth, the only way to ensure survival is by learning to coexist with others vastly different."

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and fun!, March 22, 2003

By 

Yanks Fan (Central NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds (Paperback)

I first learned about the phenomenon of synesthesia in a review of Blue Cats in the journal Cerebrum, where Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, a world authority on synesthesia says, "This book is a delight. As far as I know, this is the first time a synesthete has written about what it is like to live with this neurological condition - one in which the senses are intermingled, so that the spoken word, "cat", for example, may consistently be experienced as blue." The review prompted me to get the book, which opened my eyes to the very different ways that people can perceive the world. I recommend `Blue Cats'

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Book..., March 6, 2004

By 

M. Kinch "chaoticpi" (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds (Hardcover)

I first happed upon this book by first hearing about it through a slew of synastesia web sites I had come across in my search to understand what was going on in my own head.

I as a synasthete really loved reading her personal stories and reflections and some of the research that she's found along the way. And especially loved listening to people talk about their colored letters and how they differed from mine and the shapes people saw and how they were a brigher reflection of the shapes I dimly see listening to music.

The reason that this book got only four stars is because of the fact that she acts like there isn't really that much information on synesthesia so she starts repeating the things she's said before.

If you're willing to step into the world of synesthesia and seeing for yourself the things that we see then this is a good book to start from.