The Splendidly Scented Ladies' Book Club

I see, thanks to the all-knowing internet, that my local library has this on the shelf.

As for a sticky, Tigs will probably catch this, but just send a PM to her in case. (Likewise, the new layering challenge is eminently sticky-worthy.)

I've never been in a book club before, but a month seems reasonable length of time.

Thanks for suggesting and organizing this, Pellen -- just ordered my copy, and I'll meet you all back here the first week of February!

Wide Sargasso Sea! The story of Antoinette Rochester is a great choice for a book club....count me in!


May I humbly suggest a novel for another month, sometime or other?

Francoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse. The three female characters in that book are a diverse lot and choosing scents would be great fun. Plus it's a wonderful short work.

Count this bibliophile in!!!
GREAT IDEA

oh yay! this is a great book and perfect for the fragrance-minded. once i dig out my copy, please count me in too! :wave:

Looking forward to it. Using the chat feature of the site to do our book club talks would be great as we could all be there together in real time

I love this idea! I'm in, as long as my reading assignments for school don't completely dominate the hours I can devote to books. And I'm a bit ashamed to say I don't think I've even heard of the first selection, so it'll be fun going in not knowing what to expect!

Another bibliophile overhere. I'm in!!

Count me in as well! The film based on the book was shown on British t.v.
last year(2006), as was Jane Eyre. Look forward to reading it with you all after I've finished "Perfume" by Susskind.

Ordered my Sargasso Sea from Amazon and am set to start on February 10th - second Saturday in February? :bounce:

By the way - the suggestion of She was a sort of joke. A highly fanciful and somewhat lurid tale about a jungle goddess (hear that ladies - GODDESS!) that may be out of print. Less existential than Bonjour Tristesse however!

Thanks Pellen!

I'm over the moon about this idea. Here are my suggestions:

Cheri or The Vagabond or Break of Day - all by Colette

The Fig Eater by Jody Shields

Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber (features an evil Victorian perfume magnate!)

I think I'll stop myself there for now. But I am excited about Wide Sargasso Sea for our first meeting.

Please count me in!

Count me kinda in, kinda out. The Wide Sargasso sea sounded too depressing, and although I intended to buy it, when actually at Borders I just bought a copy of Jane Erye instead.


I recommend "The Red Tent." I don't remember who wrote it, but I read it several years ago and remember it being good. I gave it to a friend of mine to read and she liked so much so asked if she could pass it to another friend. I was kept updated for a couple more passes, but then the copy got outside my little community and I lost it. It was popular.

It gives voice to a woman briefly mentioned in the Bible, like in one verse or something, and builds a whole story about what her life could have been like. I envision wearing roses and lotus, frankincense and myrrhe, leather and ouds.

The Red Tent is by Anita Diamant. I agree - it's a tremendous read. It's about Dinah (DEE-na), a woman in the Hebrew Bible who is "raped" ,thus her brothers commit brutal revenge...or so that's how the story has been told. It's utterly fascinating to read this story from a woman's point of view as both author and narrator's voice!

I am planning on going on a sniffing excursion today so I'll try to pick up a copy of Sargasso Sea.

This sounds like fun!

The Wide Sargasso Sea is a lovely idea! I'd also suggest reading Jane Eyre as the relation between the two is so interesting.

I've recently read Cheri (Colette) & Bonjour Tristesse & think both would lend themselves very well to a perfume/literary discussion.

Could I also suggest 'Pride & Prejudice' - so many different characters, I'm already trying to imagine which perfume would represent each one best.

'Chocolat' by Joanne Harris is a very evocative story. The book is so much more detailed than the film.

OK - here I am - "Staying in the NOW"....Miz Pellen, my Sargasso Sea has arrived :bounce: and I want to start reading!!

Or do I wait until second Saturday in February - the 10th - and we all start reading together? Or do we get assigned chapters-per-week and be trying out frags to go with?

"Needing Direction in SC"

I think you should suit yourself, as I don't think we have a specific plan. I read it in 2 sittings over the weekend, and I plan to go back and take the leisurely chapter-at-a-time approach as we get into posting. I needed time to crib notes on what sorts of samples to stock up on as my collection is pretty limited so far, especially where more exotic scents go. Glad you're in!

Copy that!

(Have to admit I crept in even before I got your reply, Pellen. The writing is as spare and evocative as I remember. This is terrific choice, I think, for springboarding a literary/fragrance roundtable!! Plan on bringing home Glorioso and Casablanca lilies - maybe some jungle sounds - to get in the mood! Just got through sampling Datura Noir for Lutens week - thanks to a BNer have discovered that Datura [Jimson Weed!!] is an hallucinatory and used in Obeah to create zombies!. Oooooooh!!! )

I finished Jane Erye, and now I feel more like The Wide Sargasso Sea. Besides which, I failed so miserably at Lutens week I feel I must participate in something according to plan or feel like a outcast!

Please count me in........ah....books and perfume!!

I should be able to get my hands on Wide Sargasso Sea and would love to join you guys. I'll be flying to NYC on the second Saturday of Feb. but it would still be fun to chat about the book. I always return to Jane Eyre, so I am truly hoping for an interesting read in WSS.

This site may be useful as a reference as it is a full and unabridged copy of Jane Eyre:

literature.org/authors/bronte-charlotte/jane-eyre/

(sorry for lack of a link, I do not have enough posts to paste a url)

America's Public Broadcasting is beginning to air a new Masterpiece Theatre rendering of Jane Eyre on Jan. 21 & 28. Details here.

Oh! Wonderful! What perfect timing, indeed! <marks callendar with bright marker>

That's a good idea-- "Splendidly Scented Ladies' Book Club seeks good smellin' men, for purpose of adding spice."

ROFLOL and totally agree with Shycat!

Carlos Casteneda smoked or took Datura and ate cactus buttons and wrote several books about it. Supposedly he befriended an old wise American indian who described a lot of out of body experiences. "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge " was the first book in a series and appeared on the NYTimes best seller non-fiction list. All of his books are now considered fiction.

below is snipped from wikipedia

"Perhaps the most famous account of jimsonweed intoxication is given in The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda. The narrator records several experiences with the subtly addictive "devil's weed", which his mentor describes as having power similar to that of a woman:"

and just as importantly:
"# The guitarist Buckethead named a song "Datura" in his album "Electric Tears"."

Thanks for posting this. I wanted to reread it and couldn't find my copy -- problem solved!

Just bought Wide Saragossa Sea this morning and plan

to read it whilst I am away next week in France.

Was surprised how THIN the book was!! Mind you i have just been re-reading

A Suitable Boy and that's super thick!

Actually it's a great read and full of poetic lines and references

to the colours, smells and sights of India. Maybe I could suggest you read

that once we are up and running.

Yay for February 10th! Oh my...I just realized I will be in Boston the night before. I hope to be back at my computer before we convene.

Regardless, I will be going to the bookstore to get my WSS today!

I'm really looking forward to this.

I've been slow to respond to this thread, but will try to jump in.
I have been reading the Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber.
But now you are all making me want to re read Jane Eyre before jumping into the Wide Sargasso Sea.

here is a suggestion for a future book, too...

My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather

Another suggestion (and we haven't even started our first club yet!) is Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov. So many colorful (and I'd imagine, well-scented) characters in that one! Men's scents, women's scents, children's scents...

Hi there, I hear you're lookin' for sweet scented males that read? I'm in!

I'll try and grab a copy of Wide Sargasso Sea from the library and get back to you in Feb.

May I make a suggestion myself?

"Great Apes" by Will Self. About an artist who wakes up one day to find that his partner - and indeed, the rest of the world - has/have turned into apes. He spends the rest of the novel adjusting to his "new" life accordingly, with the help of a prominent psychologist ape. Very funny.

Think of it as an intellectual twist on the whole "Planet of the Apes" scenario.

Just putting the idea out there...

QE

Thanks, fella, for this trip back in time! (KNEW there was a reason I've become addicted to DN!!!):bounce:

Someday we can have a discussion/argument/imbroglio about where non-fiction leaves off and fiction begins!

Just watched the conclusion of Masterpiece Theatre's Jane Eyre.
Warming up for our scented reading.

Have to confess that I re-read and RE-read the book on vakay in the hills of NC - an eerie experience! Snow falling all around and in my mind I'm hot and sweaty in Jamaica!

Anyway, I started dog-earing pages where Rhys specifically mentions scent and half the book - it seems - was dog eared! Some instances were other-sense - like taste - and all gave rise to "what frag does that make me think of/yearn for?

These are obvious - others will go deeper I'm sure.

CAN'T WAIT for Feb 10th! (Obviously HAVEN'T!!)

Um... would you believe there are only three (!) copies of Wide Sargasso Sea in all the Brisbane City Council Libraries - and they're all on loan!

This is such a backwater town, I can't believe it. And if you think the libraries are bad, don't get me started on availability and/or selections of fragrances.

AND it's currently a stinking hot summer - 31 - 35 degrees c, with up to 80% humidity!

Why am I living here?

We could also focus on the role that the sense of smell plays in the book. Rhys, it seems, loved perfume - she mentioned it frequently in her other novels, and seems to have had a particular fondness for L'Heure Bleue, which got shout-outs in two separate books. But Antoinette mentions scent so often in WSS - everything from the smell of a bully's hair to the vanilla scent used by a loved one - that it seems to be a distinctive feature of her "vision." And Rochester doesn't like scent at all. This makes me wonder about the symbolism of scent, and what it means in terms of the difference between the two characters.

In terms of scent, I love the Datura Noir rec, but I also think that a good vetiver scent would be useful. Vetiver is widely grown in the Caribbean, and is used to prevent the soil from washing out and becoming infertile, so the smell would have been very much a part of the scenery. Also, in countries where vetiver is grown, it's often braided into mats and soaked in water; the breeze that blows past the damp mats cools and perfumes the home. I think of this particularly in relation to Christophine's home - she seems like the sort of woman who would know how to make the best out of the things that grow around her - but I also think the coolness and gentle scent may have been welcomed in the Rochesters' honeymoon house.

Great post djuna! You're right that there is a thread of dark green scents throughout the plot, and vetiver sounds perfect for that. I was struck by the way she used the scent of frangipanni in the opening scene, and then subtley references that experience with the frangipanni wreaths in the honeymoon house. I think bamboo and moss also becomes a signifiers. I'll have to go back and look for similar connections in her mentions of mango, ferns, orchids, etc.

Try Amazon.com - they had several used copies when I bought mine. Might could airmail to you!! Worth a try!!

A book club is such a terrific idea! I would love to participate, and will certainly try to further down the track. Unfortunately at the moment I am half way through writing a book myself and have very little time. But I hope this continues so that I can jump in sometime in the middle of the year.

best

Eluard

Yes, this braiding into mats and using them as roll up blinds is how vetiver is used in India. There was a strong Indian settlement in the Carribean (witness V.S. Naipaul) and so it probably spread from their immigrant culture. (I'm sure this is saying something, though, that everyone knows.)

Great posts Djuna and Eluard (and good luck with the book E! Let us know when it's in the stalls!) This adds SO MUCH to the mix. Looking forward to Feb 10th with ever increasing intensity!! :bounce:

Thanks Taolady

If anyone wants to augment their Jane Eyre experience with a movie. I would like to recommend the film by Jacques Tourneur called I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Jacques Tourneur was one of the great directors and you may know him better from his more famous Cat People (1943). But I Walked with a Zombie is a terrific film: a sort of film noir/horror/poetic version of Jane Eyre, full of shadows and hidden secrets. Very atmospheric!

Oh wow! I REMEMBER this flick - remember the ethereal blonde heroine, gliding through the shadowy Caribbean night shadowed by a gigantic - equally ethereal - black man, a zombie and her protector. (As I recall) No one made better use of chirascuro than Tourneur and as Eluard says this one is very evocative of the hothouse, spiritually charged island atmosphere. Wonder if Netflix has it. Gotta go check.

Many thanks to Eluard and Djuna for these great back ground references!! (Is Feb. 10th here yet??!!) :bounce:

I would love to be a part too...count me in. I started reading Perfume...it was enjoyable. I can't remember why I didn't finish, it could have been it was due back at the library. I will check it out again.

You're absolutely right, Taolady. And that scene of the heroine running in the cornfield is exactly the one that stuck in my mind for years too. And Tourneur was indeed a master of chiaroscuro he made one of the best film noirs: Out of the Past, with Robert Mitchum.

Wow the post about I Walked With a Zombie really has my interest piqued. Looking very forward to the 10th.

So what's the plan for Saturday? Are we meeting at a particular time in the chat room? Should we post general impressions? I've done my reading and note-taking, assembled a few relevant samples, and am raring to go!

....and I've found a sample of Frangipani....what's the skinny???!!! (pant pant pant)...:bounce:
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Hello? Hello?

Well February 10th is finally here! I'm not sure if there is a plan I've missed out on (we're we supposed to chat?) but at any rate, I'm going to dive in and start talking about some of the perfumes that Wide Sargasso Sea reminded me of. These are not what I think the characters would have worn, but scent impressions of the time and place, filtered through my limited collection of scents.

Chantecaille Frangipane opens as a fresh, green floral and then sweetens with vanilla. The book begins under the frangipani tree where Antoinette found her mother's horse poisoned, aswarm with flies, and decided to say nothing. Frangipani appears again in the bridal wreaths placed on the bed at the honeymoon house, which Rochester steps on, and at the end of the story, when the sight of her red dress makes Antionette recall the smell of frangipani and vetiver. Chantecaille Frangipane is a comfort scent, capturing the sense of Antoinette's innocence, but lacking the dark turn both these scenes take -- I wonder if there is a frangipani scent with chypre and animalic notes that would capture this better?

Calvin Klein Truth, with bamboo, sapling, vetiver, patchouli and wet woods, is a green scent with a dark, aromatic undercurrent. (I prefer the body oil as the edp can be a little heavy.) The story uses bamboo trees as a harbinger of darkness and menace, most notably the night of the fire that destroyed Coulibri and killed Anionette's brother, and the sense of wetness and woods are woven throughout the story. As Djuna has pointed out, vetiver is also an important frangrance both in the story and in this time and place.

Tann Rokka Kizu has marine notes, cedar, rosewood, musk and and ylang ylang. Though set in humid woods of cedar, bamboo and flowers, where Antoinette swims in a river rather than the sea, Rhys frequently reminds us that in Jamaica one is never far from the ocean. Kizu combines the salt spray, wet aromatic woods and spicy floral notes of both settings.

Maitre Perfumeur et Gantier Fraiche Passiflore captures the deep muskiness at the core of a ripe, fresh-picked fruit, the perfume that refrigeration destroys. Though the fragrance is named for passion fruit, it smells almost entirely of rich sweet mango with its undercurrent of natural spiciness. Mangos and mango trees appear often in the book, notably in the departure scene after the wedding, where the couple's luggage is piled under a mango tree in the rain, and throughout their trip.

Caron En Avion is rich with rose, jasmine and resinous spices, Maitre Perfumeur et Gantier Or des Indes smells of rich spices and exotic woods, and Serge Lutens Un Lys evokes sweet fragrant ginger lillies, and all of these scents are woven throughout the island portion of the narrative. I think Or des Indes was the single scent that capture the book best for me, (even though it's the wrong Indes), but I haven't experienced Parfums Jamaica's Khus Khus -- Moondeva, tell us more about it!

What perfume would Antoinette have worn? I'm tempted to say something with the exoticism and rich vintage feel of Or des Indes, but then I think the ripe, fresh fruit and florals of the island suit her personality better. A voluptuous rose or jasmine with a hint of something darker, maybe? Perhaps Nahema would suit her.