In the novel Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami describes the often acute and evocative power of smell: “When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages – a special odour of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.”
Nothing is as mnemonic as smell. The most abstract of the senses, when confronted, can be a force so powerful as to stop us dead – cloaking us in a memory that we thought was filed away.
“The persuasive power of an odour cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally,” explains Patrick Süskind, the author of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.
Smell is the only one of our senses that is directly hard-wired to our brains – when we first smell a new scent, we link it to a moment, a person, a feeling, therefore forming a conditioned response of some kind.
An old schoolbook can take us directly back to a small wooden seat in a classroom; hot asphalt to bloodied knees from football practice; a stale pipe directly to our grandfather’s study. Difficult to recapture if demanded, a scent can bring a certain memory to the surface with such a jolt that it forces us to unlock long-forgotten sentiments.
We talk about “wearing” a scent – just like the clothes that we choose or the bag that we carry – yet, for some of us, it’s often more of an afterthought than a consideration. A scent from a certain time period stays with us long after we first experience it, running hand in hand with melancholy and sentimentality.
The 1990s was my era, my decade – a decade awash with Doc Martens and Levi’s 501s; the decade that I learnt of youth culture, of experimentation and of saccharine scents from the Body Shop. But, like the forgotten trace of Eau Dynamisante or Chanel No5 (my mother’s favourites), they are filed away, for now.
Yet I will remember none of these as clearly as the heady – and unusual to my very Western nose – layering of scents experimented with by those from the Middle East.
For many Arabs, finding your “own” scent carries much significance – often, it’s a way in which to differentiate when wardrobe choices can be limited; a secret potion of self-expression.
Which makes me a little sad to see the West capitalising on this rich culture – greedily borrowing from the exotic ingredients of the region and launching Arab-influenced fragrances that will appeal to Western sensibilities. Offerings from designers such as Armani/Privé, Christian Dior, Tom Ford and Giorgio Armani based on oud wood and Damascus rose are now a common sight in most mainstream department stores.
I suppose change brings with it a period of readjustment. Scents that I first found overpowering now feel like home. From the region’s potent oud wood that dominates most Arabic scents, to the black iris of Jordan, the frankincense from small trees in Salalah in Oman, the roses of Ta’if in Saudi Arabia or the trail of bukhoor left from those who pass me – these are the smells that will linger with me long after my time spent here. I can only hope to rest in the knowledge that a certain scent allows “our time” to linger. Maybe it always will – which is why, perhaps, it’s often so difficult to let go of the past.
[ ktrotter@thenational.ae ]
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