The Primary Colors: Three Essays

Red cars statistically are given more tickets than any other color car on the road. Beer in the 1840s was ``a pint of yell'' (so named for its yellowish color). Blue glass is used to ward off evil in Armenia. Hitler had blue eyes. Novelist Theroux's ( Darconville's Cat ) dazzling, free-form meditation explores the three primary colors through their myriad associations in art, history, music, poetry, fiction, movies, anthropology, linguistics, myth, religion, science, food, sports and everyday life. He plumbs the emotional, symbolic and spiritual resonances of each color, with examples ranging from Chekhov to Philip Larkin, from Botticelli to Kandinsky, amplified by 12 pages of color art reproductions. Though this inquiry sometimes exasperates in its random outpouring of facts, Theroux's stylistic tour de force is not only great fun but also opens one's eyes and mind to new ways of seeing. (Aug.)