There may be a link to Mark Twain in Nabokov's description of his colored "huckleberry K" and more unexplored synesthetic mysteries about Quilty and Camp Cue?

 

"Q, a wheel with its little chock to keep it from rolling away, looks like it should be a vowel, with its open-mouthed exclamation. It is said to have come from a Phoenician “monkey face” letter. Q is the rump and the tail, according to Victor Hugo in his famous discussion of the alphabet in his 1839 travel notebooks. Q comes with its sidekick U to mimic K’s sound.

Vladimir Nabokov, in his famous colored alphabet, rendering synesthetic visions of the spoken sound, envisioned a “huckleberry K.” He writes, “Since a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see Q as browner than K.”

Like K, Q is also useful as logo and brand for its air of mystery and obscurity. Q is the guy who outfits James Bond with his spy gear, as well the symbol for a high-level security clearance. Q ships are mystery ships." 16 Dec 2008 ... Vladimir Nabokov, in his famous colored alphabet, ... www.aiga.org/content.cfm/krazy-about-k -

 

Another close reference to Nabokov and Twain in "Going where the signs pointed"

Cf: May 7, 2010 | Mark Feeney, Globe Staff
NORTH ANDOVER — The road is as much state of mind as state of motion. It’s about openness, unexpectedness, informality — the rush of events and pursuit of possibility — which makes it a very American place to be. We tend to associate writers with the road more than we do photographers: Mark Twain sending Huck and Jim down the Mississippi (you thought a road had to be solid?), Nabokov following Humbert and Lolita from motel to motel, Jack Kerouac making a cult of being on the move, on the go, and in the know, a cult that remains as potent today as when he published “On the Road’’ in 1957.
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