The book I read last week is “Das Parfum: Die Geschichte eines Mörders“, a 1985 literary historical fantasy novel by German writer Patrick Süskind. Even if it’s “just a novel”, like many other books it explores new worlds in a way that enables us to access feelings, memories, and thoughts. Focus in this casse is on the sense of smell and its relationship with the emotional meanings that scents may have.
Maybe the story was vaguely inspired by the Spain’s first recorded serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta, known as The Tallow Man (a nickname he earned for rendering his victims’ fat to make high-quality soap).
Furthermore, this novel may come up to your mind when you see one of the first scenes of the famous “The Silence of the Lambs“, when Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) enter the darkest part of the prison.
More than talking about the plot of this novel, I am writing some brief considerations on smells. But, before that, I want to write here just a couple of passages in the book that caught my attention, apart from the main theme. [Little spoiler alert!]
“Father Terrier was an easygoing man. Among his duties was the administration of the cloister’s charities, the distribution of its moneys to the poor and needy. And for that he expected a thank-you and that he not be bothered further. He despised technical details, because details meant difficulties and difficulties meant ruffling his composure, and he simply would not put up with that.”
Another passage I liked: when Baldini goes to the tanner Grimal, he invites him to share wine and negotiate Baldini’s purchase of Grenouille as an apprentice. Baldini offers an enormous sum of money and Grimal accepts, convinced he’s just made the best deal of his life, continues drinking throughout the day.
The juxtaposition of Grenouille’s natural talent to the rigorous elaborate transcribed procedures of Baldini.
Our (almost) lost sense
In an era where it seems that the only sense we need is sight, we sometimes forget the importance of smell. I’m not talking about cases in which you lose the sense of smell due to a particular disease (losing the sense of smell can be an important indicator in CoViD-19), but rather about the lack of attention we pay at our nose. Unfortunately, a study by the US National Academy of Sciences titled “Human specific loss of olfactory receptor genes” says that, despite having more than 1,000 genes potentially dedicated to the sense of smell, we are losing the ability to use them. Rather than just “losing” it, our sense of smell evolved.
A lot of studies show that olfaction has long been considered the least significant of the human senses and this is clear in the asymmetry between vision and olfaction in our language, too. Same studies show that hunter-gatherers groups might be particularly attuned to odors, showing that the main difference in distinguishing odors is in the attention we pay. So it worths to take 5 minutes ro read Time’s article: Humans are neglecting our Sense of Smell. Here’s what we could gain by fixing that.
“Fragrances directly and/or indirectly affect the psychological and physiological conditions of humans” (says a research on Influence of Fragrances on Human Psychophysiological Activity). And another study on Effects and implications of odor on emotion, concludes that “Human and complementary studies in non-human animals provide evidence that odors evoke emotion and autonomic state via pathways to the amygdala and OFC, and become incorporated into episodic memory via the hippocampus. In addition, it is suggested that some odorants which elicit emotion may have potential to treat patients with psychological problem such as depression”. Aware or not, there are some effects of pleasant and unpleasant smells on resting state brain activity“.
Take your time to smell in a mindful way every time you can, as also suggest by Dawn Goldworm on the Harvard Gazette article “What the nose knows“.
If you’re interested in my books list for 2021 updated to this week, just click here!
