Posted by Robin
on
7 August 2008
We already did a poll on Jane Austen (and another on Harry Potter), now it's time for another of my favorite authors: Lucy Maud Montgomery. I read the whole of her Anne of Green Gables series several times over as a child, and then I read them several times over again as an adult.
The first novel in the series, Anne of Green Gables, appeared 100 years ago, in 1908. According to Wikipedia, Montgomery “used a photograph of Evelyn Nesbit, clipped from an American magazine and pasted on the wall above her writing desk, as the model for Anne Shirley, the book's main character”, but the editions I had as a child, printed by Grosset & Dunlap in the 1970s…
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Posted by Robin
on
16 May 2008
That's right: two lazy polls in a row! That might be a Now Smell This first, but I've been inexplicably exhausted all this week, and can't bring myself to finish another perfume review. This poll is for any of my fellow Janeites out there, and the rest of you will find it dull as nails so please come back tomorrow when Jessica will review the new Clean Well Hand Washes scented by Mandy Aftel of Aftelier.
So…I'm sure I'm not the only one who watched much of the recent Masterpiece Austen-fest on PBS. I enjoyed it immensely…
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“A scent always dissipates, leaving in its wake no more than a faint echo, a lingering trace. Perfume is a 'here' en route to a 'there', a today floating away in the direction of a yesterday, a possession paradoxically coinciding with an immanent loss” (Richard Stamelman, p.19).
The notion of perfume as the 'essence of absence' has always been a great source of inspiration to poets and novelists. Few, however, have taken it as literally as Italo Calvino in his tale The Name, the Nose. This short story was published posthumously in 1986, together with A King Listens and Under the Jaguar Sun, and consists of three interwoven plots in which sensuality, desire, and the sense of smell play a central role…
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“If desire causes suffering, it may be because we do not desire wisely, or that we are inexpert at obtaining what we desire. Instead of hiding our heads in a prayer cloth and building walls against temptation, why not get better at fulfilling desire? Salvation is for the feeble, that’s what I think. I don’t want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb.”
These words by Alobar, one of the protagonists of Jitterbug Perfume (1984), secretly reveal what this epic novel is all about. Four intricately interwoven stories, themed around the pursuit of immortality and individualism, take us from ancient Bohemia (1000 A.D.) and the slopes of the Himalaya to modern-day Seattle, New Orleans, and Paris. The narrative shifts back and forth between past and present, featuring an ex-king (Alobar) and the love of his life (Kudra), the foul-smelling God of the woods (Pan), a waitress with a college degree and a little secret (Priscilla), a small-time perfumery in New Orleans (Madame Devalier and her assistant V’lu), and an eccentric big-shot perfumer in Paris…
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It’s never too late to read a good novel; but if you haven’t read Süskind’s Perfume yet, now is the time to do so. A combination of breathtaking suspense and unparalleled olfactory prose, this literary debut was one of the greatest worldwide bestsellers in the mid ’80s. The eponymous movie, directed by Tom Tykwer, will premiere in a few months. This may be your last chance to apply your personal, unbiased imagination to the story.
Perfume is the horrifying tale of an 18th century Parisian orphan, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, whose primal curse — his unhuman lack of body odor — is paradoxically contrasted by a superhuman sense of smell. While the ‘demonic’ absence of a personal smell makes him a social outcast, Grenouille’s interior world is completely dominated by olfactory perceptions: the boy thinks, dreams, lives in terms of scent. Throughout his childhood, he avidly memorizes the fragrant landscapes surrounding him; in a desperate attempt to regain his own humanity, he becomes obsessed with the idea of creating the most sublime perfume imaginable. As a perfume apprentice, he quickly reveals his uncanny talent for fragrant compositions; but conventional methods will not lead him to his ultimate goal. For his definitive masterpiece, Grenouille resorts to dramatic sacrifices…
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