swaths of English flowers

“In the borders beside the path swaths of English flowers‘phlox and larkspur, hollyhock and petunia’not yet slain by the sun, rioted in vast size and richness. The petunias were huge, like trees almost. There was no lawn, but instead a shrubbery of native trees and bushes—gold mohur trees like vast umbrellas of blood-red bloom, frangipanis with creamy, stalkless flowers, purple bougainvillea, scarlet hibiscus and the pink Chinese rose, bilious-green crotons, feathery fronds of tamarind. The clash of colours hurt one’s eyes in the glare.”

—George Orwell, Burmese Days, 1934.

Elizabeth’s head was beginning to swim

“The merchandise was foreign-looking, queer and poor. There were vast pomelos hanging on strings like green moons, red bananas, baskets of heliotrope-colored prawns the size of lobsters, brittle dried fish ties in bundles, crimson chilis, ducks split open and cured ike hams, green coco-nuts, the larvae of the rhinoceros beetle, sections of sugar-cane, dahs, lacquered sandals, check silk longyis, aphrodisiacs in the form of large, soap-like pills, glazed earthenware jars four feet high, Chinese sweetmeats made of garlic and sugar, green and white cigars, purple brinjals, persimmon-seed necklaces, chickens cheeping in wicker cages, brass Buddhas, heart-shaped betel leaves, bottles of Kruschen salts, switches of false hair, red clay cooking-pots, steel shoes for bullocks, papier-mache marionettes, strips of alligator hide with magical properties. Elizabeth’s head was beginning to swim. At the other end of the bazaar the sun gleamed through a priest’s umbrella, blood-red, as though through the ear of a giant.”

—George Orwell, Burmese Days, 1934.

An all-metal blonde

“Fanquist was one of those take-a-second-look dames. You know what I mean, don’t you? An all-metal blonde with a build-up that does things to you, and a figure that weakens your resistance.”

—James Hadley Chase, Get A Load Of This, 1942.

Booker loved green

“The phone must have rung 15 times before Booker got out of the Jacuzzi, put on his green satin robe that matched the emerald pinned to his left earlobe and picked up the phone. Booker said: “Who’s this?” A woman’s voice said, “You sitting down?” The phone was on a table next to a green leather wingback chair. Booker loved green.”

—Elmore Leonard, Freaky Deaky, 1988.

Foe-damned ruby motor

Colourful Allusions, vol. 1

Red rimmed his eyes, blue shadowed his jaws

“He looked very tired and at the same time enthusiastic, if the combination can be imagined. Red rimmed his eyes, blue shadowed his jaws, but he had a triumphant look on his face, the look of a man who has done his job well and expects a kind word.”

—Cornell Woolrich, Dead On Her Feet, 1935.

a tiny revolution

“Every joke is a tiny revolution.”

—George Orwell, quoted by Emma Larkin in Finding George Orwell In Burma, 2005.

the real scenery

“When [George] Scott entered [Shan] territory over a century ago . . . [l]ocal people drew maps for [him]. A few months before I had sat in a reading room at Cambridge University Library marvelling over some that had survived. They were as big as bed sheets, and thickly painted on rough paper or mould-speckled linen which crackled as I unfolded it. Some were quite beautiful. The rivers were painted ruby-red; the mountains, which were often given strange, curly peaks, were done in electric greens and purples; pagodas were painted gold. The maps were surreal, magical, like illustrations from a Dr Seuss book, yet utterly true to the wonder inspired by the real scenery now unfolding before me.”

—Andrew Marshall, The Trouser People: A Story of Burma—In the Shadow of the Empire, 2002.

a man called Zaganar

“The country’s most famous comedian was a man called Zaganar. In 1990 he joked that he’d just bought a new colour television, but when he got it home and turned it on it only had two colours: green and orange. Zaganar, whose name means “tweezers”, was poking fun at the endless airtime devoted to showing generals in uniforms making meritorious donations to orange-robed monks. He was arrested after the show, and spent the next five years in the notorious Insein Prison in Rangoon’s northern suburbs. (And yes, Insein is pronounced “Insane”.)”

—Andrew Marshall, The Trouser People: A Story of Burma—In the Shadow of the Empire, 2002.