Many authors use pe rfume as a novelistic shorthand for memories awakened in complete recall. A character smells something and it awakens deep memories, or takes him back in time. In Daphne du Maurier’s neo-gothic romance Rebecca , this motif takes a sinister turn. A youung girl marries a widower with an obscure, tragic past and moves to his ancestral estate . She soon discovers that the place is haunted by the presence of the memory of the previous wife, Rebecca. This ‘haunting’ is mostly expressed through smell and fragrance. Azaleas, overpowering, overfeminine, unnaturally-abundant blooms which choke the manor of Manderley, become a symbol of the dead wife’s overpowering femininity. Rebecca even wore a perfume which smelled of azaleas. The hapless new wife discovers traces of perfume on Rebecca’s clothes, which have turned musty with age, she experiences the oppression of the obscure yet present past in the form a choking fog that blights the landscape at the mom
I ordered a sample of one of Guerlain's new Voyages Olfactifs, Tokyo, and I must say I am a little disappointed with the resulting green fragrance. It seems awfully one-dimensional for this house, and lacks much excitement. It seems pretty linear, and, dare I say it, rather generic. Tea notes plus cedar plus violet plus orange blossom= meh for me. If this were in the more reasonable price range, I might appreciate it more. Like, Vera Wang should be producing this for the boring mass market. Not Guerlain. This is simply not up to snuff, and I find it tragic that the great perfume house known for baroque elegance is trying to enter the uninspiring modern perfume market in such a way. This is sellout thinking, and I don't like to see it in Guerlain. People should come to this house once their noses have been educated and they are ready for a real fragrance--or they should use Guerlain to educate themselves. Guerlain should not come to them. Grr! Plus, why those trashy bottles? Oh dear, what is this world coming to?
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