Madeleine de Proust: Rain, Grass and Books

Remains of rain drops on blades of grass. Bandung, June 2011

 

I don't like morning rain, it makes a new day immediately feel like dusk. But the drizzle that fell early last week was nice. Because, along with the thin drop of rain at that time, someone was mowing the grass that had grown tall in the yard. The air smelled like fresh grass and the scent of rain.

I don’t know how the memories work, but the fragrance that I smelled that morning immediately threw me into the hall of the Frankfurt book fair the day before the opening, when the display shelves were still being assembled, the carpets had not been installed, the books were still scattered and just removed from the boxes.

The exhibition hall air had that distinctive odor in my memory. It may be associated differently for other people, but for me they are locked in the same box.

Smell can be a means of transportation for the mind, like a key to opening a memory box, holding a secret code to penetrate the time portal. Smell evoked flashy memories, carrying along the emotions that were present at the time.

The smell of jasmine for me always brings back memories of my mother at dawn when I was a child. Umak liked to pluck jasmine flowers that were still wet with dew after fajr prayer congregation at the mosque, then she kept them in the folds of the mukena along with the mushaf of the Quran. Smelling the scent of jasmine anytime for me evokes a sense of calm, serenity, protection and freedom from all burdens, just like at that time.

The smell of diesel made me dizzy, irritated, lost my temper, reminded me of a long road trip of thirty hours by bus from Bandung to Padang nearly three decades ago. I avoided this smell as much as I could.

Marcel Proust, a French writer in the early twentieth century, describes such involuntary memories in his 1912 novel, In Search of Lost Time. The six-volume, 3000-page novel opens with the scene when one morning, writes Proust, "a spoonful of lemon tea. mixed with pieces of madeline cake ”flashed his memory back to his childhood at Aunt Leoni's house.

“... the piece of madeleine soaked in the decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me, immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set…and with the house the town….the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine…the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.”

From Proust’s novel, such moments later get the name: Proust Moment — sensory experiences that trigger a flood of old or even seemingly forgotten memories. Some psychology and neuroscience researchers call it the "madeleine moment". In French, the term "madeleine de Proust" is commonly used in everyday conversation, for example, "Lavender is madeleine de Proust to me. The smell reminds me of a family vacation in Provence. "

The close connection between smell and memory is due to the brain anatomy. The olfactory nerve is located at the front of the brain close to command centers such as the hippocampus and amygdala. Therefore, the smells received by the olfactory nerves go directly to the systems in the brain related to emotions and memories. This is not the case with signals from other senses such as taste and sight.

The sense of smell is the only sense that has matured in the fetus in the womb, and one that is most developed until the age of 10 when the sense of sight begins to dominate. Hence childhood tends to be the period when we create memories of the smells we love and hate most throughout life.

I love the smell of grass and rain that morning. It is said that these are the two types of smells that people love the most. Some scientists say that we inherited our liking for the smell of rain from our ancestors who relied on the rainy weather for survival. Meanwhile, the smell of grass is preferred because it creates an association with the green color, which symbolizes life and fertility.

The rain that fell on the dry land gave off a scent called petrichor. The term was coined in 1964 by two Australian scientists Isabel Joy Bear and Richard G Thomas, from a combination of two Greek words petros, "stone," and ichor, which mean "fluid flowing in the veins of the gods."

The three components that make up the smell of petrichor are an organic compound in the soil called geosmin, ozone from the air, and volatile plant oil.

The fresh scent of freshly cut grass comes from green leaf compounds that are usually emitted by plants when damaged by insects, infection or cut by mechanical forces like a mower.

Apart from grass and rain, another smell that many people like is the smell of books. I just found out that there is also a special name for this smell, that is biblichor. Books have the distinctive fragrance of a mixture of ink and paper coupled with the effects that arise from the aging wood of the paper material.

Most of us have been familiar with books from childhood, maybe that's why biblichor is a commonly preferred smell because it is associated in the subconscious with comfortable and pleasant childhood memories.

Many people really like the smell of books and that is why they reject digital books. Ray Bradbury, author of the famous American novel Fahrenheit 451 raised objections when his novel would be published in e-book form, saying, “There is no future for e-books, because e-books are not books. E-books smell like fuel."

 

Lovers of the smell of books took biblichor to a higher level of art. Steidl, a printer and publisher from Gottingen, Germany, created a Paper Passion perfume that replicates the fresh scent of a book when it first opened. 

This perfume was designed by boutique perfume maker Geza Schoen who spends days at Steidl's paper-laden headquarters in Gottingen, sniffing and sifting through paper and ink samples to find inspiration for a perfume that has a rights balance between the smell of paper and the aesthetic of a pleasurable perfume. 

Paper Passion is packaged in a unique book-shaped box, the opening pages contain an introduction written by, among others, the Nobel Prize winning German novelist, Gunter Grass.

In November this year, Powell's bookstore chain based in Oregon also released a perfume product called Eau de Bookstore. With notes of violet, wood, and "smell of books," to "create an atmosphere in the aisles of the bookstore, secret library, ancient papyrus," as the official description reads on the bookstore's website. 

This perfume was launched amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused bookstores around the world to close their physical shop doors and only open to the public electronically.

Parfum "Paper Passion" dari Steidl

Rain, grass and books can trigger Madeliene de Proust moments. Of course there are many other odors that can have this effect: the smell of freshly baked bread, brewing coffee, paint on the walls and marjan syrup. The memory triggered by the smell appeared only for a moment, fleeting quickly. In contrast to nostalgia, intentional memories, olfactory memories just come along involuntary with the passing of an aroma.

Designers are now starting to incorporate the scent factor into branding, for example hotel chains want visitors to get the same scent when staying at their hotel branches in any city around the world. Memories inherent in using certain services or goods can be used to increase consumer loyalty.

Increasing age reduces the acuity of the sense of smell. However, according to experts, the nose is like a muscle in the body that can be strengthened by giving it daily exercise with sniffs. The more often it is used, the stronger its ability.

With more and more providers of various essential oils with creative names such as "Ocean Dream", "Magical Forest", "Silent Night Signature", it seems that I can enjoy the sea and the forest from the seat in my room.

Peppermint, Eucalyptus, Frangipani 

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