The Secondary Colors: Three Essays
Novelist Theroux's intoxicating essays on orange, purple and green?one essay per color?comprise a logical sequel to his popular The Primary Colors. In "Orange" he veers from Chaucer's Chaunticleer to Halloween to Al Jolson's joyous shout "Velveeta!" Each color calls forth a multitude of associations drawn from daily life, art, literature, myth, history, music, science, film, cuisine, religion, until each hue seemingly defines an arc encompassing the whole world. "Purple" stimulates Theroux to imaginative leaps as he contemplates the color of sanctity, wit, devotion, vanity, majesty, truth. The essay on green hops from baseball slugger Ted Williams's eyes to poet Anne Sexton's "Suicide Note" as Theroux plumbs "the ambiguous color of life and death." What might have been a random assortment of trivia becomes in Theroux's palette an education of the senses and emotions, a magical tour of the visible landscape, an exploratory adventure of continual discovery and enchantment.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.