3. Secrets, baba? Since when do civilised folk, such as ourselves, have time for secrets?

 

Well. That was fun, but still not quite right.

I was going to write a bit about the secret history of the Virgin Mary, the Black Madonna and all that, but… what’s the point? Shouldn’t this whole book be more about art theory and its links with literature and writing? Then again, aren’t there enough books out there covering everything anyone needs to know about art theory and all the like?

Let’s put are thoughts on the things that matter right now, the things that matter to us… or me, I have no idea what matters to you. Don’t take offence to that, I strive to learn.

Let’s think about colour for a while. Let’s think about how colours are vital to both art and literature, how the description of something using colour can influence a story and even help tell it. How colours and even the lack of colour in a work of art can change its meaning and alter its impact on a person.

Yes. Let’s think about colours.

I found a copy of The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice, (1998), in a charity shop. It’s the fifteenth of March and pouring down with rain. It’s that impossible weather where the wind is too strong to keep an umbrella up so the only option left is to just get wet, plus I didn’t dress for the rain and icy cold water is creeping up my legs and my trousers soak up the water from the ground. Despite this, I had decided that today would be a day of exploration. Today I have a budget of twenty five pounds and a borrowed bus pass and I am going to pay every bookstore in Bristol a visit, including all charity shops and second hand book stores.

My first stop was one of the two charity shops in Broadmead across from the Premier Inn, and this is where I found a vast collection of Anne Rice Novels, one that rivals my own.

Now, I’d read The Vampire Armand a while ago  so I had no need to buy it, I did buy a copy of Ghostwritten,(1999) by David Mitchell for one pound forty though, so that’s now crossed off my list. But back to Anne Rice.

 The Vampire Armand might actually be my favourite Anne Rice novel, ever, and holding the book in my hands, just for a second, brought back a lot of memories.

The book is written in a way that excludes bias, if that makes sense. The main character is documenting his life but it is almost like he's doing it from a distance, like he was simply a casual observer in his own life, to his own youth.

The two central characters are Armand and Marius who are both artist, for a time. This is probably why the descriptions in the book are so heavily dependent on colours. To me, everything seems to be described in terms of colours and hues and it's hard not to find that alone an enduring quality to the book.

People are described in terms of colour such as the character David, described as:

“… the colour of caramel” of “cinnamon, clove mild pepper and other golden spices, brown or red...” 

Garments, scenes and all the usual things you would expect are described in terms of colour, but so are other thing such as emotions and pain.

“... each blow was the divine colour red and that I liked, and that the hot crashing pain I felt was red, and that the warmth swelling up in my leg after was golden and sweet.”

If each sensation, feeling or emotion was a colour, or a texture, a certain shade of purple or carried with it a certain feel, what would be the possibilities of that?

I know that the pain of a chill would be silver, glittery silver. It would be ice, thinly layered and sparkling in the light. But what could be done with all that?

What can be done with colours, sensations, textures and words?

How does colour truly effect things?