I Got A Condition

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Finally picked up A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass—queenlyzard recommended it to me some time back as a YA novel about synesthesia, something I might, for obvious reasons,want to take a look at . I kept forgetting to look for it, but when I came across it while shelving books the other day, I seized it.

And, as with any book that portrays an experience that I can share, I have opinions. Starting with the cover.

I love this cover. I have never seen a book cover that was so surprisingly accurate and so infuriatingly wrong at the same time.



I’m not talking about the cover art, which is not very interesting, but about the letters at the top. I don’t know if it’s apparent on this image, but each letter has not only a specific color, but also a texture. The g even has purple spots. This is actually pretty true to what goes on in a synesthete’s head—letters do indeed have color and texture.*

However … it’s still overwhelmingly wrong.

I mean, in what crazy mixed-up backwards upside-down bizarro universe is the letter a YELLOW?

Seriously. Everyone knows it’s bright pink.

Don’t even get me started on that m. Good god.

Anyway, while the book has a nice enough plot of standard tweenage Journey Of Self-Discovery, I must admit the portrayal of The Synesthesia Experience felt—well, overdone. Granted, I’m only comparing to my own experience, but it is strange to see its process be so dramatic. Unlike the main character in this book, I had no traumatic school experiences involving ridicule by classmates and angry parent-teacher conferences; no fleeting fear that I was crazy; no carrying it as a deep dark secret; no real way it inhibited my life. I just remember it always being there, and finding out through a very short conversation** (so unremarkable that I don’t remember who it was with) that I might be unique, and then not really worrying about it or even giving it a second thought. Then I found an article that named it, and I got rather interested in it for a while because hey, who wouldn’t be interested in their own newly-discovered mutant power? It never would have occurred to me that it was a stigma of any sort, or something to fear.

And the badge on the cover saying that this book won the ALA Schneider Family Book Award, which honors the “artistic expression of the disability experience,” is just bizarre. When the hell has synesthesia ever been a disability? I mean, yes, it’s unusual, and yes, for some it can be distracting, and yes, it can give you strong opinions about really weird things. And, yes, every once in a while somebody reacts with slight hostility when you explain what it is.

That, my friends, is not a disability. You can’t say, straightfaced, that synesthesia is anything like those real disabilities, the ones people really have to work around. A synesthete can’t tell someone with, say, severe ataxic cerebral palsy “Oh, yeah, I know exactly what you’re going through with your disability, with the falling down and the speech problems and the writing problems and the morons who think you aren’t intelligent and so forth. Why, just the other day I saw a poster with the letters all mixed up, and it was mildly irritating.”

Hell, I don’t think synesthesia even counts as a condition. It’s pretty much a sensory bonus.

*ahem* Sorry. Sometimes I get a little annoyed with that sort of thinking.

But there were some moments that rang wonderfully true. For a non-synesthete, the author gives some pretty spot-on descriptions of the main character’s extremely specific sensations for the colors of graphemes, and there’s one great bit when a the synesthesia specialist asks the main character how she pictures the calendar year, and she says “Just like everybody else” and then launches into a long confused description of the year as a Ferris wheel that goes counterclockwise and falls over and god knows what else. And the way she feels totally attached to it, like it’s an important part of her, is great.

Mostly my response to the book is one you get when someone else describes something you’ve experienced, too—you want to tell your version of it. And it will probably help at least a few kids recognize their own synesthesia. Likeable, but not my usual style.


*And also 3-D depth, lighting, highlights, gender, personality, and location in space, but that’s hard to render on a book cover. And it’s not always, mind. Just for some.

**“You ever notice how letters and numbers have color?”
“... No.”
“Oh. It must just be me then.”

Comments

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

It seems to depend on the type and intensity of synaesthesia, whether it functions as an asset or a handicap. For some people it can be horribly, dangerously distracting. For others, it's just this cool thing that happens. Mine is usually an asset, only occasionally a distracting nuisance -- sometimes colors have a sound, or smells have a color, or flavors have a texture.

[mfb.livejournal.com]

You are wrong. A is bright red

Disability?

[shadesofmauve]

Maybe I'm overly legalistic in that I like the Americans with Disabilities act definition, but when does Synesthesia qualify as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities"?

Except, of course, the major life activity of drawing the letter n in whatever color you're asked. :P

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Letters and number dont' have color. Music has colors. Colors have tastes and smells. Textures sometimes have sound.

Everyone always just gets it wrong. *shakes head*

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

I met a synesthete out here who perceives sound as light and it actually does cause her problems, since the louder the noise is the brighter the light is. For example, she couldn't go to the fourth of july party because the fireworks would have given her sensory overload. D:

But yeah, I'd still call synesthesia a different way of being, rather than a true disability.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

How can you complain that their representation of the letters is wrong? Those associations are different for everyone. It's not really possible to represent them incorrectly.

Also, everything these days is a condition to the psychiatrical or medical mind. Even easily-changed things like Delayed Sleep-phase Syndrome.
The thing to realize about the word "condition" is that it isn't synonymous with the word "problem". It's more accurate to say it's synonymous with "trait". It's just an excessively rigorous way of keeping track of what kind of person you are.

Also also, I personally like the letter "c"- because it's for "cookie".

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Metaquoted again!

BTW, I've been meaning to ask: does choice of font have any effect on what color your brain ascribes to letters? Do you get different colors for sans serif than you do for, say, German blackletter? Does lowercase a have the same color with or without a curl on top?

[mis-creation.livejournal.com]

Hi. I'm a random weird person who friended you because 1) I'm strangely fascinated with synaesthesia (probably because I have nothing that cool about me) and 2) You have a Daja doll with a gold hand! That is made of awesome!

...I'm not terribly good at commenting, so I probably won't be much bother. You just sound really interesting.

[broken-moons.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm here through Metaquotes. Do you mind if I friend you? I like your sense of humour, and I'm a synesthete as well and I like to read about other synesthetes' experiences.

P.S. A is totally red, I can't believe you don't see it!
P.P.S. Well, it depends on how you pronounce it. In words like 'mango' it's also slightly blueish.

[daiq.livejournal.com]

I read your journal since one of your previous metaquotings because i love the way you write - and i find this fascinating! It all suddenly makes sence...

And also hysterical, because i curse in my head about reading your stark white font on black background journal entries - reading as a Dyslexic in the Scotopic Sensitivity spectrum, your journal is dancing a jig and acting like a dervish every time i open it!

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

This was the book that introduced me to the idea of synaesthesia, and I admit I loved it. While I agree that there was some over-dramatization, I can easily see a child having this problem-- not everyone is just ok with being labeled "different," particularly if it causes them trouble in school. And since the condition is so little-known, I can definitely see a child being ridiculed for insisting on the way she "sees" things.

I think that synaesthesia comes in a wide range, and can be everything from a definite asset to a disability (commanderd, for example, experiences tastes when she sees colors, and can find the wrong piece of artwork not only distracting but actually nausea-inducing). Most often, I suspect it's a little of both-- an oddity that helps out with memory but may make certain things confusing.