氣味

by Annick Le Guérer, 阿尼克．勒蓋萊

「氣味，只有氣味才製造了神話。」——加斯東．巴舍拉
「感性事物中，只有氣味可以殺死人類或再造人類」——傑洛姆．卡當

看不見、摸不著的氣味，長久以來難以形容，卻散發著無可抵擋的力量。從部落獵人利用氣味誘捕獵物，到紅塵男女塗抹香水吸引異性；從傳說裡的巫婆使用香脂以變形飛行，到歷史上的修女聲稱聞了不吉利的玫瑰花而著魔，人們一度相信疫氣造成了大規模死亡。氣味，既是誘惑也是辨識，甚至具有致命效果，在人類社會中扮演了原始而神秘的角色。

然而，我們在今日獲取的氣味遠比過去貧乏，甚至被不當地判定為「嗅覺減退」。本書由神話、宗教、文學、哲學、科學等不同領域追蹤氣味，描繪氣味如何籠罩人類的物質和精神生活，同時也找到氣味與情欲、超自然、神聖、生命要素的連結。作者援引豐富的傳說、史實和研究文獻，歷歷指出人們對鼻子與嗅覺的愛恨毀譽，也映照出氣味和香料的魔力源頭。

隨著五感經驗成為現代生活風格的重要元素，香水、品酒、薰香與芳療逐漸受到重視。作者認為，人們對嗅覺文化的渴望已然萌芽，氣味充滿復興的潛力，此時不找回我們的鼻子與嗅覺，更待何時？

Genres: History, Science, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1988

Reviews

[Gretchen Rubin]

An academic book. I skimmed it to focus on the parts that interested me, which were very interesting. It happened to include a lot of material about how people viewed the role of scent during various plagues.

[Sacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes laborious reading, but interesting subject matter.

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing wasn’t good. And it feels like there are major gaps in what got included in the history of scent (the entire world outside of Europe was forgotten, and the culinary consideration of scent was given no attention). But. I did learn a lot about the plague, and disease theory as it pertained to scent for a lot of European history.

I also learned that “mummy” was a very popular cure-all prescribed in the later Middle Ages and renaissance, and it was just … human corpse? Treated with all kinds of disgusting pickling agents? And then desiccated into a powder that people would eat and apply to wounds. So I’m grateful that I don’t live in a time where that’s a thing.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an occasionally interesting foray into medical history, cultural history, and the plague years, and how scent was key to medical treatment and divinity in antiquity. I guess we can count ourselves lucky (??) that we weren't ordered to burn aromatic woods and blast cannons down the street during the covid years...