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Reading the Scent Trail: Margaret Atwood

Posted by Cheryl on 24 September 2010 40 Comments

Quick reminder: join me for an online book club in October. We'll be talking about Remembering Smell by Bonnie Blodgett.

Between my usual work commute, and an unusual amount of travel, I’m finding it difficult to curl up with a book these days. But I haven’t cut back on my reading. All of this road and plane time has led me back to one of my favorite indulgences — audio books, and to one of my favorite authors — Margaret Atwood.

I heard Atwood speak last April at a nearby university. She was promoting her newest book, The Year of the Flood (2009), a novel about  environmental catastrophe, mass extinction, genetic engineering, world hunger, exploitation, the end of literacy, and the future of humanity.  You will understand that although I was eager, I refrained during the Q&A from voicing my one burning query: “What perfume do you wear?”

This question isn’t quite as gratuitous as it sounds. As Atwood spoke, my mind filled with half-memories of her novels, many of which I’d read over a decade ago. While the details had blurred over time, I was still haunted by the olfactory ghosts of each and every one of them. There is a passage in Bodily Harm (1998) that I just can’t shake — only a sentence I think — where changes in a Lora’s bodily odors lead to a disturbing revelation. Early in Alias Grace (1997), the protagonist describes the word “murderess” as having the musky, oppressive smell of dead flowers in a vase. Later, Simon Jordon is distracted by Grace’s scent of skin, smoke, laundry soap, mushrooms, ferns, crushed fruit, and unwashed scalp. She in turn has detected his odor of lavender, leather and ears (yes, ears). In the dystopic Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Offred remembers wearing Yves Saint Laurent Opium before the revolution; under the current rule of totalitarian theocracy, Lily of the Valley perfume signals luxury, feigned piety, and hypocrisy. A title-within-a-title, The Blind Assassin (2001) foreshadows several fatal failures of perception. In this multi-layered, richly fragrant story, even the space ship in a character’s pulp novel gives off a hard-to-pin-down signature scent: “almonds, or patchouli, or burnt sugar, or sulphur, or cyanide.” Protagonist Iris Chase Griffen fumbles through young adulthood, eyes wide shut, yet sensitive to the everyday smells of wet earth under melting snow, kitchens, sheets, bakery, garbage bags, tobacco, rubber boots, furniture polish, and human bodies, including her own. Among the gifts from young Iris’s inattentive husband were perfumes, including Lui by Guerlain. Much later, at the age of 83 she muses: “I can't overcome the notion that my body smells like cat food, despite whatever stagnant scent I sprayed on myself this morning — Tosca, was it, or Ma Griffe, or perhaps Je Reviens?”

Atwood constructs narrative kaleidoscopes. Multiple perspectives and seemingly loose pieces fall into order through reflections of reflections. Past and present, childhood and adult experiences refract off of one another. With their limited access to words and interpretive tools, the children are especially sensitive to smells. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Cat’s Eye (1985), the Atwood novel dearest to my heart. Elaine’s repressed recollections of cruel girls and complicit adults unfold against a crisp, often overpowering olfactory symphony. “We remember through smell, as dogs do,” she observes.

My fond, bittersweet, incomplete and perfumed memories of Atwood’s prose have led me to re-read (or re-hear) a number of novels in quick succession. An old favorite, The Robber Bride (1993), was the latest. It is the story of three women brought together by a mutual college acquaintance turned enemy, the ruthless and ravishing Zenia, who bulldozes her way through life, leaving a wake of broken-hearted survivors. The likeably and believably flawed protagonists maneuver through that familiar, “Atwoodian” world of shaky social terrain, made more precarious by limited perspectives and an unconscious desire to not see the obvious. Odors signal moments of connection, pleasant and painful: Tony savors the the familiar fragrance of her husband’s head; warm Tabu is the smell of childhood trauma for Karen; Roz identifies a lingering scent of Opium perfume at the location of her greatest loss. But above all, this is a story of disconnections, reluctance to communicate, missed chances to read signs.

This time around, I was struck not so much by the riveting, suspenseful tale of Zenia’s manipulations, as by how the Robber Bride (like Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Cat’s Eye, etc.) celebrates the importance of story-telling, and of telling one’s story; of listening to stories, and reading them, too, not just to communicate, or to reveal, or to archive, or to heal, but also to think, to interpret, to understand, to exist. I am reminded of a twist on Descartes' "Je pense, donc je suis," or cogito ergo sum (“I think therefore I am”), in The Handmaid’s Tale — words I replayed, then hastily scribbled down in a parking lot one day: "Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence.  I tell, therefore you are."

Fragrant Readers, if only I had pulled over and scribbled more often, I would have notebooks full of quotes from the works of Margaret Atwood, and so many others. Meanwhile, I continue to enjoy Atwood on audio, particularly as read by Barbara Caruso.

I’m sure that you, too, have been drawn to literary scent trails. Share your favorites. Tell your story.

Margaret Atwood's books are easily to find in multiple formats at new and used book stores including Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, and available for audio download at audible.com.

Filed Under: perfume books
Tagged With: literature

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40 Comments

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  1. dee says:
    24 September 2010 at 4:18 pm

    Cheryl, what a delightful essay for the middle of my Friday. I’ve only ever read Handmaid’s Tale, but when I walk over to the library later today, I plan to pick up a few others. I suppose since scent memory is so powerful, I always feel enveloped by a story whose author skillfully paints fragrances throughout their tale–I wonder why this technique isn’t used more?

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    • Cheryl says:
      24 September 2010 at 5:21 pm

      Have fun with the new Atwood. They are also good.

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  2. odonata9 says:
    24 September 2010 at 4:34 pm

    I love Margaret Atwood – just read Oryx & Crake and Year of the Flood recently, but will have to pay attention more in future readings of hers for scent issues.
    Not sure if you have checked out the site goodreads.com – she is doing a kind of multi-day Q&A there, answering questions submitted online. You could ask her your question yet! (I would link the Q&A here, but my work blocks the goodreads site!) She is a fascinating person and her blog is great as well.

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    • Cheryl says:
      24 September 2010 at 5:22 pm

      Thank you! I might just muster up the courage to ask.

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  3. FOandW_oh_my says:
    24 September 2010 at 4:46 pm

    Cheryl,

    A special writer indeed, is Margaret Atwood. I am so glad you brought this up here. Thanks!

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    • Cheryl says:
      24 September 2010 at 5:26 pm

      It is great to connect with fellow Atwood fans!

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  4. rudith says:
    24 September 2010 at 4:46 pm

    Thanks, Cheryl, for reminding me of the many scent references in Margaret Atwood’s books! I read many of the books you listed years ago and remember being struck at her scent evocations. They’re among the things I remember about her books.

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    • Cheryl says:
      24 September 2010 at 11:54 pm

      So glad to hear someone else had these memories of her books!

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  5. Aparatchick says:
    24 September 2010 at 4:57 pm

    What a pleasure to come here and read about my favorite author! I heard her speak several years ago and the woman is not only a great writer, but scary smart! The Robber Bride is my favorite among her works; it contains great characters – each one complicit in their own manipulation at Zenia’s hands. I understand she’s considering writing a sequel of Year of the Flood, which I’m sure I’d devour.

    She tweets, you know (the reason I signed up on Twitter). Perhaps you could ask her about her perfume preference there.

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    • Cheryl says:
      24 September 2010 at 11:56 pm

      I will try to muster up the courage to ask her.

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  6. annemarie says:
    24 September 2010 at 5:37 pm

    I read a lot of novels but on the whole found that while many novelists evoke scents and smells, references to perfume are relatively rare. When it is mentioned, it will usually be a perfume that a novelist’s readers will probably know of, like Chanel No 5.

    A nice exception is a character in a novel by Madeleine St John, an Australian writer. Her 1993 novel ‘The women in black’ is set in the ‘frock department’ of a department store in Sydney in the 1950s. Her character Magda is mistrusted by her jealous colleagues, partly because Magda is beautiful, confident and successful, but mostly because she is Hungarian, a ‘continental’. She walks past her colleagues in a ‘cloud of Mitsoukou’. Presumably this is Mitsouko, but who knows if it is a deliberate error on the author’s part. The point of the reference is that the perfume sounds exotic and expensive. We imagine that the other women would have been in eau de cologne or ‘toilet water’, if anything at all. Mitsouko was probably obtainable in Sydney in the 1950s, but Magda might have brought it with her from Europe. She boasted of having been a vendeuse for Patou. The author winks and tells us that this was actually ‘absolute whopper’, but still ‘she might have been.’

    Madeleine St John’s favourite classical pianist was apparently Mitsuko Uchida. She knew her stuff! Sadly, she died in 2006.

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    • Cheryl says:
      24 September 2010 at 11:58 pm

      Thank you so much for bringing her work to my attention!

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  7. Alyssa says:
    24 September 2010 at 5:52 pm

    Such a fun essay! I’ve thought about this with several of my favorite authors–especially ones I’ve gone back to post-perfume obsession. I think there’s a lot of overlap between wordsmiths and perfumistas.

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    • Cheryl says:
      24 September 2010 at 11:58 pm

      I agree!

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  8. Nina says:
    24 September 2010 at 7:22 pm

    Oh wow, another Atwood fan! Great piece, Cheryl. You know, I’ve just finished reading The Robber Bride, and I didn’t even notice the perfume references! I must have been so consumed with the stories of Tony, Roz and Charis that I forgot the mention of Tabu. I’m so glad you read more carefully. Many thanks.

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 12:00 am

      Oh, I’m so glad to find a fellow RB fan here. I want everyone I know to read it.

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  9. RuthW says:
    24 September 2010 at 7:31 pm

    Wonderfully written, thank you so much – haven’t read Atwood in years and your essay was so compelling I will stockpile a few books for this winter.
    My first thought when you asked about our “literary scent trails” was how often Lemon Verbena was mentioned in the Little House on the Prairie book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Sophisticated? No. As a child I devoured these books and they represent my first association with character and smell. At the time I was sure that Lemon Verbena must be the most beautiful smell on earth.
    Things change, the books are kept for when my two little girls will be old enough to listen (or read) and my association with scent and character has grown and deepened with many authors.
    Thanks for reminding me.

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 12:01 am

      I was addicted to this series but have no memory of the scents references. I can’t wait to reread t hese books!

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  10. becca b says:
    24 September 2010 at 8:24 pm

    I’m reading Alias Grace right now, and read the bit about Grace smelling of, among things, an unwashed scalp – and I remember pausing thinking that this is both a very common, easily identifiable smell, but one that I have never heard vocalized. There are, it seems to me, more olfactory descriptions in this novel – more realized, specific ones – than in any other novel I have read in quite a long time.

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 12:03 am

      Yes, it seems as if the smell of a person encountered is as important as the usual visual elements: hair and eye color, etc.

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  11. Benj says:
    24 September 2010 at 8:39 pm

    My favourite novelist ever is Angela Carter, and one of her best novels, Wise Children, is a fantastic story of mistaken identity and a century of showbusiness. As is the case for so many other characters in the book, the two main characters are identical twins, Dora and Nora, and much is made of the fact that the only way most people can tell them apart is that one wears Mitsouko and one Shalimar. Awesome.

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 12:04 am

      Mow #1 on my To Read list. Thank you!

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  12. Minnie says:
    24 September 2010 at 11:52 pm

    Hi Cheryl: Thank you for this! I have read some Atwood titles, and like you The Cat’s Eye is my most memorable read. I think I remember from that book a mention of how her father’s lab smelled of Formaldehyde. When I read it I didn’t know what Formaldehyde was, but years later when I did smell it in science class I thought “so that’s what she was talking about!” It is so interesting that you brought up Atwood’s attention to the olfactory sense . . . something author’s may not exploit to its fullest in their writing. Your article has made me want to re-read those Atwood works I have already read and read some new ones with a new “ear” for her attention to the sense of smell. it also makes me wonder what other authors pay heed to that sense and what other authors, perhaps incredible authors, entirely ignore it. I love Jane Austen, but has she ever mentioned an odor in all her writing?

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 12:07 am

      Ooh, good question.It’s been a while..Has anyone read Jane Austen recently enough to remember the scent references?

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      • Minnie says:
        25 September 2010 at 12:38 am

        I can’t recall any & I’m thinking it might have been “improper” to have evoked that particular sense at the time.

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  13. ol rait says:
    25 September 2010 at 1:28 am

    I LOVE Margaret Atwood. Whenever I see a book of hers in clearance at my local discount book store, I snap it up with greed. My favorite is probably Oryx and Crake, but it’s definitely a shocking book so I don’t recommend it often. I do remember reading that Liu reference in The Blind Assassin (which I didn’t like much, actually); Iris hated it! Too flat. And now that you mention it, I do remember the Opium reference in Handmaiden’s Tale. I don’t remember each of her book having that tactile “thread” but I am eager to read more of her stuff.

    How lucky that you got to see her speak!

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 2:43 pm

      I had trouble getting into Oryx and Crake at first, and was certain I didn’t like it. But then it grabbed me and there was no escape.

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  14. ceelouise says:
    25 September 2010 at 7:11 am

    Thank you for this! Atwood is a great writer, although I like her earlier work better than her recent end-of-the-world themed titles. I’ve considered re-reading The Blind Assasin lately. What perfume would you wear while reading it? (I like to link perfumes to my books. The easiest was to wear Dzing! while reading Water for Elephants.)

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 2:45 pm

      What a great question. I never thought of pairing a perfume with the book,. I’d be tempted by something literal-a perfume of Iris’s era. Or maybe something wild to go with the story of the women who grow on trees, the Peach women……Did they smell like peaches? I can’t remember? In the spirit of the narrative, I guess layering would be the way to go.

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      • ceelouise says:
        26 September 2010 at 9:42 am

        Layering like the story, I like that idea!

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  15. baykat says:
    25 September 2010 at 11:34 am

    Cheryl, thanks for putting Atwood on my radar, i will certainly read a few of her books this fall. Your article is very interesting and thought provoking, as always.

    Oh- my literary scent trails: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His description of Remedios the Beauty, and how her scent permeated men even when they went the grave. Odd, but his use of scent for this character is fascinating.

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 2:47 pm

      Thank you,, Baykat! That’s a good one. One more for the reading list.

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  16. flittersniffer says:
    25 September 2010 at 11:43 am

    What a fascinating post, and you have made me want to dive back into all my Atwood books and find these references, for all my reading of her work predates my interest in perfume!

    The Edible Woman is one of my all time favourite novels, possibly because the protagonist is a market researcher like me…

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 2:47 pm

      Thank you for reminding me of that one. It’s on my shelf, I read it so long ago…must revisit!

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  17. Dixie says:
    25 September 2010 at 1:48 pm

    Cheryl,
    Thank you for the enjoyable post! After years of reading nonfiction, I’ve been looking for some good fiction and you’ve given me a place to start!

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    • Cheryl says:
      25 September 2010 at 2:50 pm

      I”ll bet you find you are very attentive to mentions of smell that might go unnoticed by someone less tune in to that sense, especially if you have been reading non-fiction works on perfume, smell culture, etc.

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  18. nozknoz says:
    25 September 2010 at 7:39 pm

    Great post – it’s amazing to how Ms. Atwood uses scent!

    I can only remember one literary perfume reference. When I was a teenager, I read an excerpt of Truman Capote’s Answered Prayers in a magazine, and the two things I’ve always remembered were the icy, scarlet, chili-infused vodka that the wealthy protagonist served, and her perfume, Shalimar.

    I was inspired to purchase Shalimar cologne at the local drugstore – that circular bottle and label with the conical glass stopper. Unfortunately, I hated it then, and was embarrassed to have wasted the money. I take particular satisfaction in discovering that I love vintage Shalimar now!

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    • Cheryl says:
      26 September 2010 at 9:35 pm

      I must read that!

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  19. JennyM says:
    29 September 2010 at 10:25 pm

    Lovely post, Cheryl! I love it when an author gets all of your senses going. Tom Robbins always does that for me, and I was excited by the way he wrote scent long before I became interested in perfume.

    This may seem obvious, but I recommend his book “Jitterbug Perfume”. My long-favorite passage is when he describes the difference in smell between rain in Seattle and rain in New Orleans. If I may:

    “New Orleans rain smelled of sulfur and hibiscus, trumpet metal, thunder, and sweat. Seattle rain, the widespread rain of the Great Northwest, smelled of green ice and sumi ink, of geology and science and minnow breath.”

    Love it! Now I’m off to dig up more Atwood.

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  20. Cheryl says:
    30 September 2010 at 9:34 am

    Thanks, JennM.
    What a terrific quote.

    It has been pouring here for days. I’m going to think about how the rain here in the Mid-Atlantic smells compared to those.

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