Jitterbug Perfume is American writer Tom Robbins' fourth novel and was listed on the New York TimesBest Seller list in 1985.[1] The book follows two interweaving storylines, one in Ancient Eurasia and one in the present day. The story connects dueling perfumers in Seattle, Paris and New Orleans to a bottle of incomparable perfume created by two unlikely but defiant lovers of the past who seek immortality. Orchestrated by a mysterious Irish philosopher, the past and the present collide when the characters come together and discover the unexpected path to life-everlasting. The book was first published in 1984 by Bantam Books and later published by Random House.
A powerful and chiseled 8th-century king named Alobar narrowly escapes regicide at the hands of his own subjects, from a custom of killing the leader at the first sign of aging. After fleeing, no longer a king but only a man, he travels through Eurasia, on a newfound quest for the secret to longevity. Eventually he stumbles upon the stamping grounds of the pungent goat-god Pan, who is slowly losing his godly powers as the world turns toward Christianity. Pan encourages Alobar to continue East in search of the masters of immortality.
Meanwhile, in the present day, Priscilla, a part-time waitress and amateur perfumer, is stalled in re-creating the fragrance from the last remaining drops of a three-hundred-year-old perfume bottle in her possession. She rejects the sexual advances of her co-worker Ricki. She begins an affair with an eccentric Irish philosopher, Wiggs Dannyboy, who runs a clinic for immortality research called the Last Laugh Foundation. She attempts to ignore the mysterious deliveries of beets she keeps receiving at her apartment.
In New Orleans, Priscilla's stepmother, Madame Devalier, a once successful perfumer, is also working to recreate the same fragrance as Priscilla. Madame D's protégé V'lu urges her to attempt to formulate a scent that will compete with their historic competition in Paris. The two have their hands on premium Jamaican jasmine supplied by a mysterious man with the helmet of swarming bees, Bingo Pajama, a symbolic figure in the story.
In Paris, Claude and Marcel LeFever of the LeFever Parfumarie are not concerned with the small perfume house in New Orleans, but rather their new scent and its synthetic base. Claude has been charged with keeping an eye on Marcel's stability. Though the "creative nose" of the company, his latest ideas on evolution of a new consciousness have got his uncle, the owner, Luc Lefever, more than a bit unsettled. It is revealed that Luc has placed Marcel's lover V'lu as a secret agent to send them information about Perfumerie Devalier.
In Ancient India, a heinous widow commits suttee, a ritual of self-immolation. Alobar consoles a young girl, Kudra, who was horrified at the sight of the woman attempting to escape the flames of the funeral pyre. Years later, the girl, now a young woman, arrives at a lamasery where Alobar has taken residence for two decades. The two fall in love, and as with most of Robbins' couples, their mutual libido is enormous, and their love quite like something out of a comedic fairy tale. Kudra reveals that she recently escaped suttee herself, and the two find a common bond in their defiance of death.
Alobar tells Kudra about his encounter with a mysterious group known as "The Bandaloop Doctors," who are masters of immortality. The two set off to the caves of the Bandaloop to learn immortalist practices. Through the remaining vibrations of the now empty caves, the lovers begin a daily practice of controlled breathing, regular fasting, frequent sex, and bathing in extremely hot water. Alobar and Kudra, successful in their practices and never aging, find they are constantly on the run, moving around Europe to avoid the threat of violence against them for their heathen practices. After several hundred years, they have settled and opened a perfume shop in 17th century Paris. When a group of monks threaten their lives, they try to create a perfume to take "stinky Pan" to the New World with them. When time runs out, they attempt a sort of new transcendental meditation and become separated into different astral planes. Alobar completes the perfume formula with Pan using pungent sugar beets as a base and they voyage to the New World. Alobar ultimately loses not only the love of his life, but the precious bottle of sweetly scented perfume.
In the present, the ancient bottle of perfume is stolen by V'lu while Priscilla is attending a dinner with Wiggs Dannyboy at the Last Laugh Foundation. Priscilla goes to New Orleans to retrieve it, but misses Madame Devalier and V'lu. The pair are in hiding after witnessing the murder of Bingo Pajama.
Later, Priscilla's relationship with Wiggs Dannyboy is put on hold by a tragedy at the Last Laugh Foundation. But Dannyboy relays the good news that Marcel Lefever and his good friend, the thousand-year old Alobar, will be coming to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and that he will arrive shortly thereafter.
Alobar, Marcel, and Priscilla all convene for Mardi Gras, where they encounter Pan one final time. Priscilla recovers the bottle when V'lu and Madame Devalier return. Together, they learn the secret of the mysterious beets, the perfume and the story of Alobar and Kudra. In Paris, the story makes a final stop in another dimension, led by Kudra, discovering the way to immortality.
The main message is summarized in the words spoken in Alobar's 8th century Bohemian dialect Erleichda, loosely translated as "lighten up".
A restaurant in Kennebunkport, Maine, is named "Bandaloop", with the owners using the book as the primary inspiration for the design of the business;[2] a similar restaurant existed in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, US, between 1988 and 2003. Menu items at the Baltimore eating establishment were named after characters and events in the book, while the suspension from the ceiling of a fully decorated, upside-down Christmas tree during the holiday season also garnered attention.
A book store located at 709 West Smith Street in Orlando, Florida from 1991 to 1995 was named Alobar Books, after the main character in the book.[3]
Project Bandaloop,[4] a multi-dimensional dance company founded in 1991 by Amelia Rudolph, was named after the Bandaloop from Jitterbug Perfume.
A hostel in Kathmandu is named Alobar1000 after the book's character, inspired by his extensive travel and pursuit of immortality.[5]
A stage production was produced in Seattle at Cafe Nordo in 2019.
Βανδαλούπ, a historical Greek punk band, has taken its name from The Bandaloop Doctors.[6]
Alobar and Kudra inspired a composition by the Italian pianist and composer Stefano Bollani. Named "Alobar e Kudra", the composition is included in his CD Joy in spite of everything (2014).[7]
Michael Hedges wrote a song inspired by Jitterbug Perfume which he titled "Jitterboogie." It appeared on his Oracle album (1996).
Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Perfumes can be defined as substances that emit and diffuse a pleasant and fragrant odor. They consist of manmade mixtures of aromatic chemicals and essential oils. The 1939 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry, Leopold Ružička stated in 1945 that "right from the earliest days of scientific chemistry up to the present time, perfumes have substantially contributed to the development of organic chemistry as regards methods, systematic classification, and theory."
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 1985 literary historical fantasy novel by German writer Patrick Süskind. The novel explores the sense of smell and its relationship with the emotional meanings that scents may have.
François Coty was a French perfumer, businessman, newspaper publisher, politician and patron of the arts. He was the founder of the Coty perfume company, today a multinational. He is considered the founding father of the modern perfume industry.
Jean Patou was a French fashion designer, and founder of the Jean Patou brand.
Chandler Burr is an American journalist, author, and museum curator.
Chanel No. 5 was the first perfume launched by French couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in 1921. The scent formula for the fragrance was compounded by French-Russian chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux. The design of its bottle has been an important part of the product's branding. Coco Chanel was the first face of the fragrance, appearing in the advertisement published by Harper's Bazaar in 1937.
Guerlain is a French perfume, cosmetics and skincare house, which is among the oldest in the world. Many traditional Guerlain fragrances are characterized by a common olfactory accord known as the "Guerlinade". The house was founded in Paris in 1828 by the perfumer Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain. It was run by the Guerlain family until 1994, when it was bought by the French multinational company LVMH. Its flagship store is 68, Avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris.
Johann Maria Farina gegenüber dem Jülichs-Platz GmbH is the world's oldest eau de Cologne and perfume factory. It traces its origins to a luxury goods retail business founded in 1709 in Cologne by Giovanni Battista Farina, who was subsequently joined in the business by his younger brother, Giovanni Maria Farina. The short form 'Farina gegenüber' and the French name 'Jean Marie Farina vis-à-vis de la place Juliers' were also commonly used over a long period of time. The company's logo is a red tulip.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 2006 period psychological thriller film directed by Tom Tykwer, who cowrote the screenplay with Andrew Birkin and Bernd Eichinger, based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Patrick Süskind. The film stars Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood and Dustin Hoffman. Set in 18th-century France, the film tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Whishaw), an olfactory genius, and his homicidal quest for the perfect scent.
The word perfume is used today to describe scented mixtures and is derived from the Latin word, "per fumus," meaning through smoke. The word perfumery refers to the art of making perfumes. Perfume was refined by the Romans, the Persians and the Arabs. Although perfume and perfumery also existed in East Asia, much of its fragrances were incense based. The basic ingredients and methods of making perfumes are described by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia.
Olivia Giacobetti is a French perfumer. She has an independent line called Iunx and has also created fragrances for Diptyque, L'Artisan Parfumeur, Guerlain, and Hermès, among other lines. She is particularly known for a refined style as well as innovation such as her novel use of fig in perfumery, popularizing the note beginning in the mid-1990s. She is among the perfumers who became prominent in a late-20th and early-21st-century turn toward the "nose" behind the scent and independent lines that foreground these creators, a shift away from perfumes sold by fashion labels or celebrities in other fields.
Nina Ricci is a fashion house founded by Maria "Nina" Ricci and her son Robert in Paris in 1932, and owned by the Spanish beauty and fashion group Puig since 1998.
Jean-François Houbigant was a French perfumer who founded the second oldest perfumery in France. He established a modest shop in 1775 at 57 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. He chose a basket of flowers to identify the front of his shop and that emblem will remain the symbol of Houbigant through the years.
Drakkar Noir is a men's fragrance by Guy Laroche created by perfumer Pierre Wargnye. The fragrance was introduced in 1982 and is manufactured under license by the L'Oréal Group. It is a successor scent to the brand's 1972 fragrance Drakkar, launched to appeal to a British market. It won the 1985 FiFi Award for "Most Successful Men's Fragrance (Limited)", and, in 2010, the Canadian Fragrance Awards' "Hall of Fame Award—Men's". In 1991, it was the bestselling men's "prestige" ($20+) scent worldwide. The name is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable "Dra-CAR". According to The New York Times, the name derives from "a flat-bottomed Viking ship".
Truth or Dare by Madonna was a lifestyle brand by American singer Madonna. It was the second enterprise from MG Icon LLC, a joint venture between Madonna, her manager Guy Oseary and Iconix Brand Group. This is the second brand from the venture after Material Girl, which is a fashion line designed by Madonna and her daughter Lourdes and launched in 2010. Initially the line launched with handbags, footwear, accessories, intimates and fragrances.
Ernest Daltroff, was a French perfumer and the founder of Parfums Caron in 1904.
George William Septimus Piesse, known as Septimus Piesse, was an English chemist and perfumer. Piesse was a leading author and innovator of modern perfume ideas, inventing the concept of notes in perfumery that are still used universally today. He was the co-owner of Piesse and Lubin, a perfume house that created some of the most popular scents of its day.
Alberto Morillas is a Spanish perfumer. He is a master perfumer at Swiss fragrance and flavor firm dsm-firmenich, where his notable creations have included Calvin Klein CK One, Giorgio Armani Acqua di Giò and Marc Jacobs Daisy. He has an independent line called Mizensir.
Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette is a work of art by Marcel Duchamp, with the assistance of Man Ray. First conceived in 1920, created spring of 1921, Belle Haleine is one of the Readymades of Marcel Duchamp, or more specifically a rectified ready-made.
Un Jardin sur le Nil is a 2005 perfume created by perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena for Hermès. A unisex eau de toilette, the scent was inspired by the green mangoes Ellena smelled while walking through a grove of mangoes during a visit to the Nile.
↑ W. Scott and Bridget Lee (2012). "Bandaloop is". Bandaloop Restaurant. W. Scott and Bridget Lee. Archived from the original on 4 August 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
↑ Orlando, City of Business License Permits Database Search 1992
↑ Bandaloop (1991–2012). "Welcome to Bandaloop". Bandaloop: Re-imagining Dance, Changing Perspectives. Bandaloop. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
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