cont'd ...

Although I'm not sure that I would go back and re-read it.

I saw only the film. Very well directed but I disliked it intensely. The ultimate smell of a virgin, I mean, how boringly heterosexist. OK, so sex is the primary animal function, but it doesn't make us different from other animals, many of which have a sense of smell thousands of times sharper than ours.
As a portrait of obsessive dementia, it works. As a depiction of certain unsavoury aspects of humanity, it's fine, but I define art as a selective recreation of reality that offers us a glimpse of a more 'perfect' world; this is a glimpse of perdition, I can't think of it as art.

You're right about the sense of smell. It's one of our
basic senses. Some animals use it to recognise their
home territory, animals of their own kind, and other kinds
of animals. They also use smell to find food and mates.
Insects and some other animals secrete pheromone in order
to communicate by means of smell with their own species.
The pheromone secreted by certain female moths can be detected
by males of the same species from several kilometres away.

Where would we be without the ability to smell? The smell-stimulus
is so important to us to be able to distinguish between things
pleasant and unpleasant - right? Take food for example. Smell
is important (taste, equally so). Perfume has existed since
ancient times. Ancient peoples burned fragrant resins, gums
and woods, as an incense at religious ceremonies. Even the word
"perfume," comes from the Latin words - "per" meaning "through"
and "fumes" - meaning "smoke." Perfumes have been found in
the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. The Egyptians soaked fragrant
woods and resins in water and oil and then rubbed their bodies
with the liquid. They also embalmed their dead with these
liquids. The ancient Greeks and Romans learned about perfumes from
the Egyptians.

It's interesting that for hundreds of years perfume making was
chiefly an Oriental art. In the early 1200's, the crusaders
brought perfume from Palestine to England and France. By the 1500's
perfumes had become popular throughout Europe. Synthetic
chemicals have been used extensively in perfumes since the late
1800's.

Well I hope you're all very proud of yourselves.

You have totally destroyed my dream of some day, on this life or even after it, partaking in a propper thorough going Roman orgy.

The whole idea is a bit on the nose now.

Lexi,

Our sense of smell is a major subliminal factor in our every day existence. I think, especially in the West, our eye has taken over our consciousness so that we tend to rely on it over and above our other senses. I'm remembering childhood though, and the way smells seemed so much more important - and also the power of a smell to stimulate memories (a frangipani always takes me back to summer at Scarborough beach).

csteele,

So many aspects - your line is good "(a very evocative capturing of souls)- his wanting to get at the essence, to get answers, with scant regard to the fact he is killing the thing he most desires to know about."

I also wondered about it as a metaphor for the negation of worldly notions in favour of "heavenly" ones. Smell is of earthly origin - the absence of smell points to othernesss - something not of corporeal essence. His seven years alone in the wilderness (cave) where he retreated to an interior life, calling up at will his scents and odours and creating an interior world from them. This interior grandly laid our like a palace where he even had servants, in contrast to the cave and sackcloth and cold earth which embalmed him in his solitariness.

...and Grenouille "the frog" who is an amphibian who inhabits both land and water, thus straddling two atmospheres.

Chacun ses goûts ... I just can't get Pepé Le Pew (and Penelope) out of my mind.