I finally got around to reading an issue of The New York Times Magazine that was published in mid-February, and I really enjoyed an article titled “Hope in a Bottle,” by the Scottish author Andrew O’Hagan. If you like written reflections on scent and memory and personal history, you should read it too. Click here!
It’s almost Spring (really! soon!) and the green leaf-tips and purple-edged buds of crocus flowers have been peeping up from the dirt in front-yard garden patches along my street.
For me, no writer conveys the anticipation of each changing season as well as Emily Dickinson. I love Dickinson’s poem beginning with the line “I tend my flowers for thee —,” especially this flower-filled stanza, which evokes the fragrance of a garden in bloom:
Carnations — tip their spice —
And Bees — pick up —
A Hyacinth — I hid —
Puts out a ruffled head —
And odors fall —
From flasks — so small —
You wonder how they held —
You can read the rest of the poem here. (Of course, it holds deeper layers of interpretation!) You might also enjoy this discussion of garden imagery in Dickinson’s work, here.
Have you read The Perfume Lover by Denyse Beaulieu? If you haven’t, and if you’re a perfume-lover yourself, you should seek it out.
Denyse will be visiting New York on the occasion of the United States publication of her book, and she will be signing copies at Aedes de Venustas on Friday, March 22nd. If you’re located in the New York City area and you’re interested in attending, you can send an RSVP e-mail to aedes@aedes.com.
You can also visit Denyse’s fragrance blog, Grain de Musc, for further information and related reading.
The past week-and-a-half have been draining for me: I caught the flu, my husband caught the flu from me, and our sweet cat M. was suddenly ill (but not with the flu). We’re all on the mend now, I’m happy to say.
“Escapism” and “Cormac McCarthy” aren’t words that you usually see in the same sentence, but McCarthy’s novel All the Pretty Horses gave me something to focus on last week when I needed an emotional break from our various illnesses.
Continue reading “My Back Pages: Perfume in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses”
I just learned that Donna Tartt’s third novel will be released later this year. It’s titled The Goldfinch and, according to Amazon, it has a release date of October 22, 2013.
I’ve been meaning for a while to write a post about Donna Tartt. Maybe I will, soon. For now, I’ll just say that her first novel, The Secret History, has been one of my favorite contemporary novels since the year of its publication. I recently created a Tumblr picture-blog in its honor, which you can see here. (Because I never have enough online projects going on at once, apparently.) Do visit! …
TINSEL CREATION 