Scratch and sniff books have been lost to the advances of modern technology.
As far as I know, no electronic wonder has yet to replace them.
Smello-vision never panned out.
If I had the technology, I would have opened this post with a bouquet of jasmine, a hint of citron, and an underlying base note–barely detectable mind you–of beet pollen.
That is the perfume which anchored Alobar and Kudra to the physical realm. It opened up the floral consciousness of all who smelled it. And it drove the half-goat god Pan half-mad for masking his musk of rut.
Tom Robbins’ 1984 novel Jitterbug Perfume is a philosophical text disguised as fiction. But I assure you, you’ll never notice.
He does not insist on conveying the philosophy of immortality. He simply mixes the vapors and lets it waft pleasantly by your nostrils.
I read 13 pages of this book and forgot about it for a couple of months. Then I picked it back up by the side of a pool in the mountains of the Italian countryside. Perhaps the old gods’ old stomping ground infused–I was hooked.
Jitterbug Perfume follows a group of modern perfumers all angling for the perfect scent. It shifts from their story to that of Alobar, starting when he was a bohemian king in the ninth or tenth century.
His people kill their king as soon as he shows any sign of aging so that his soul will travel into the new vibrant and youthful king. Alobar fakes his death and embarks on a quest for immortality.
Christians, shamans, monks, the fading god Pan, and the mischievous bandaloop all leave their mark– as do the women in Alobar’s life. One in particular, Kudra, joins him for the long haul.
And that’s important, because one key to immortality, is:
