fragrant reading - Gazelle by Rikki Ducornet

I know that I read Gazelle by Rikki Ducornet about a year ago because I remember seriously contemplating a bah-humbuggy Valentine's Day post on martial infidelity featuring Gazelle and Blue Angel by Francine Prose, which I read around the same time. That post didn't come to anything and I never got around to posting about either of the novels. I really wasn't keen on Blue Angel and I've more or less succeeded in putting it completely out of my mind. Gazelle lingers, though.

Gazelle was an impulse buy (from Book Depot in St. Catherines, Ontario) before I put the kibosh on unfettered book acquisition. The opening sentence of its flap text--"A mother's betrayal, an unexpurgated copy of The Arabian Nights, a dazzling perfume-maker, and the scent of rose attar all serve to awaken a girl of thirteen to the erotic life"--is no doubt sufficient both as a synopsis and as an explanation for why I picked up the novel. What I remember most about Gazelle now is the novel's language and how fragrance permeates it.

That afternoon I heard the curious vocabulary of the perfumer for the first time. Vulgar was said with a sneer, venomous shadow with reverence.  A scent might be milky or metallic, sulphurous or chalky.  One was to be worn with linen the color of sand or snow; one was prodigious, one had a velvet body, another's was deep red, or, if worn in stormy weather, red veering to black; one smelled of old silver and cedar forests, and yet another was symphonic--"unlike the stenches my rivals call perfume but which are no better than the urine of asses and camels!" The great perfumes of ancient Egypt:  hekenou, medjet, sefet, and nekhenem he called: irresistible.  Their names alone seemed to darken the garden air with a mysterious smoke. (38-39)

The Twelve Rooms of the Nile by Enid Shomer

The Twelve Rooms of the Nile by Enid Shomer

This is a work of fiction inspired by real people. Though I have hewed close to the facts, I have also taken liberties with them. [...] Flaubert and Nightingale did indeed tour Egypt at the same moment with nearly identical itineraries, but as far as we know, they never met. However, the historical record does suggest that they glimpsed each other in November 1849 while being towed through the Mahmoudieh Canal from Alexandria to Cairo. (449)

In her debut novel, Enid Shomer (who has previously published three collections of poetry and two of short stories) imagines what might have happened if a 28 year-old Gustave Flaubert met and became friendly with a 29 year-old Florence Nightingale while each was traveling in Egypt in 1849/1850.

The Twelve Rooms of the Nile is a character driven story told alternatively from the perspectives of the novel's two protagonists. It is a bit of a slow read, but that is almost to be expected from a book focused more on the internal lives of its protagonists than on its plot.

Nightingale, Flaubert, and the novel's secondary characters are well-drawn¹ and Shomer plays Nightingale and Flaubert's similarities and dissimilarities against each other to great effect.  The timing of the pair's parallel trips to Egypt, before either of them had begun the work for which they'd become famous, was particularly fortuitous and Shomer deserves much credit for realizing the potential for a double coming-of-age story and for executing it so well.  

1. While I was reading the novel I found Nightingale's maid's backstory unnecessarily odd, but I was happy to learn in "Acknowledgements, Sources, and a Note" that it was based on an actual contemporary relationship, that of Hannah Cullwick (as detailed in The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant), rather than a flight of fancy.

Sync this week: Cleopatra's Moon and Antony & Cleopatra

Sync's offerings this week (Thursday, July 19 through Wednesday, July 25, 2012) are:

Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Shecter

and
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra

The Luxe meets the ancient world in the extraordinary story of Cleopatra's daughter.
Selene has grown up in a palace on the Nile with her parents, Cleopatra and Mark Antony--the most brilliant, powerful rulers on earth. But the jealous Roman Emperor Octavianus wants Egypt for himself, and when war finally comes, Selene faces the loss of all she's ever loved. Forced to build a new life in Octavianus's household in Rome, she finds herself torn between two young men and two possible destinies--until she reaches out to claim her own.
This stunning novel brings to life the personalities and passions of one of the greatest dramas in history, and offers a wonderful new heroine in Selene.

The twin empires of Egypt and Rome mingle and clash in this towering tragedy. Impulsiveness, passion, mistaken identity and dark humor all color the fascinating dalliance between Antony and Cleopatra, the larger-than-life pair at the center of this play.
A BBC Radio 3 full cast production.

Go here to get this week's downloads.

Note: these books don't expire like the e-audiobooks you get from the library. So, be sure to download the books even if you don't think you'll get around to listening to them right away.

More information about Sync is available in this post.

scent and a review of The Book of Lost Fragrances

I reviewed Chandler Burr's The Perfect Scent almost exactly two years ago (see review). Since then I've nearly finished a bottle of Hermés' Un Jardin sur le Nil, one of the perfumes whose development Burr chronicles in the book, and developed a fascination with perfume. Reading about perfume can be quit difficult because it requires fragrance vocabulary (chypre? that means: with citrus top notes and woodsy base notes) and an extensive flavor knowledge (vetiver? that's a grass native to India; no idea what it smells like) in order to describe something that is highly experiential. I follow a number of fragrance blogs and make note of perfumes that sound like something I might like, but I'll admit that it really still is all Greek to me. I'm beginning to figure out how scents I enjoy are commonly described, but I'd never be able to a purchase a perfume scent unsniffed.

A week or two ago my friend Nancy (another fragrance enthusiast) pointed me to author M.J. Rose's new book, The Book of Lost Fragrances, and the fact that individuals who preorder it can get a free sample of a perfume inspired by the novel (this promotion ends March 1, details here). I really love the fact that there is a fragrance tie-in to this book and I think it might actually get me to preorder the book if I had a budget for personal book acquisition and made a practice of buying hardcovers when they first came out. I'd already requested a review copy from Atria Books, a Simon and Schuster imprint, via NetGalley so I decided that I'd read it sooner rather than later.

The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose

After the death of their father, Robert and Jacinthe L'Etoile inherit the family's distinguished perfume house, which is on the brink of financial ruin. Tensions between the siblings are high. Jac wants to sell two of the house's signature fragrances to keep the business afloat, while Robbie believes that he can find another way to save the struggling firm.

Family lore holds that a L'Etoile ancestor traveled to Egypt where he found a book formulas from Cleopatra's fragrance factory, which included a soul-mate perfume. When Robbie disappears after discovering what seems to be an priceless antiquity in their father's studio, ever-sceptical Jac is forced to consider the fact that the ancient memory aid might be more than just a legend and that people are willing to kill for it.

The novel's prologue takes the form of a 2007 newspaper article about a new regulation issued by China's State Administration for Religious Affairs that bans the reincarnation of Tibet's living Buddhas without permission. The Book of Lost Fragrances' narrative follows a number of different characters including a few Chinese and Tibetan throughout, but the direct connection to House of L'Etoile is made when Robbie, a practicing Buddhist, announces his plan to give the artifact to the Dalai Llama.

The Book of Lost Fragrances is compelling reading, but I think that it could have been better. I don't mind the choppy narrative, that happens when perspective changes as often as it did, but there seemed to be a bit too much in the way of digression which is problematic in a thriller where tension is so important. Additionally some things about the plot felt forced or too convenient and some of the twists were obvious to me quite far off.

I did like extent to which scent was incorporated into the story and I loved that the siblings had a special scent language that they developed as children. I also appreciated the author's note, in which Rose separates fact from fiction.

There's a description of Sleepy Hollow that I'll highlight in a separate post.

The Book of Lost Fragrances will be released in mid March.

disclosure: I received a review copy of The Book of Lost Fragrances from Atria Books via NetGalley.

The Egyptian

The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Hubby and I literally just finished listening to this book. The first adjective that comes to mind when trying to describe this book is LONG (20 CDs!). It seems like we've be listening to it forever, but that's also because we could only listen to it when we were together.
Overall, good book. An epic tale of one man's life is the best way for me to describe it.

Book description:
A full-bodied re-creation of a largely forgotten era in the world's history: the Egypt of the 14th century B.C.E., when pharaohs and gods contended with the near-collapse of history's greatest empire. This epic tale encompasses the whole of the then-known world, from Babylon to Crete, from Thebes to Jerusalem, while centering around one unforgettable figure: Sinuhe, a man of mysterious origins who rises from the depths of degradation to become personal physician to Pharaoh Akhnaton.

The best part about the book is definitely its scope. It also seems to be really well researched. Waltari does a wonderful job describing the ancient world. He brings Egypt (and the rest of the places to which Sinuhe travels) to life for his readers.

Of course the book isn't perfect.
Sinuhe is "a complete imbecile" (quoting hubby here). In all honestly, though, it's hard to relate to the protagonist because keeps doing the stupidest things. That being said, his life is a fascinating one.
My only other complaint is about audio version (by Audio Connoisseur, available at audible.com) in particular. Charlton Griffin, the reader, gives the book's female characters (as well as Sinuhe's slave/friend Kaptah) the most annoying voices, voices that grate on the nerves.


You will not believe what I found in the store this weekend...
A brand new (copyright 2006) game called Aton!

The whole of Egypt is in uproar – Akhnaton, who has just acceded to the throne, wants to ban the old deity Amon from the temples of the land. Aton is to be worshipped as the new God.
But the priests of the land are not willing to give up their temples without resistance so the 4 largest temples are fiercely disputed.
The players are adversaries and fight out this battle of the Gods between them. Both have the same starting position, but who will be able to make better use of his abilities and help his God to victory?

After reading this book, we just have to get it (we play alot of euro board games). I put it on our wishlist as soon as we got home. ;)