Have YOU seen the light?

While I was listening to The Book Show on ABC Radio National this morning I was wondering what my fellow synaesthetes might think of the passage from a book that was being read aloud. It was the section from Brida by Brazillian author Paulo Coelho that has apparently been nominated for the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Literature Contest. It can be read in an article about the awards on the CBCNews web site titled "No bad sex please, this is literature." But after listening to the naughty bit from the novel I had to wonder, with that blinding explosion of golden light, just how bad could that nookie be? 

I'm sure Coelho's writing isn't the first literary reference to the naughtiest form of synaesthesia. What do you think Stanley in the Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire was talking about when he spoke with Stella about “..the way that we used to get the colored lights going…”? One literature study aid points out that there are sexual connotations here (well obviously), and it offers the interpretaton "that lights, when related to Stanley, are associated with positive images such as vibrancy, life and excitement." I think coloured lights might mean rather more than vibrancy and excitement to some people. ;-) I'm thinking, Nabokov probably isn't the only big name in literature who had or has synaesthesia. 

"No bad sex please, this is literature." http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2008/11/21/sex-literature.html?ref=rss

Did I miss something, or did Obama forget to mention Hillary Clinton in his victory speech?

Today's events have restored my faith in Americans. Here in Australia voting in federal elections is compulsory, so our election results are not as influenced by the level of voters' enthusiasm. Australians are notoriously apathetic, so this is a necessary evil. I'm pleased that so many Americans have made an effort to vote. I hope the people of the USA will get the government that they deserve in January 2009, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.