No, Really, We Love The Collective Unconscious

October 14th, 2004 · No Comments
by Booksquare

We’re not sure what prompted the thought (and we’re too terrified to explore deeply), but the other day we were thinking about the sense of smell. You know, when you write, you’re supposed to evoke all five senses (more if you can manage it, but aim for at least the five). Ah, now we remember, we were thinking about a particular scene; we were working with a live critique group for a while, and one member felt everything about the scene was out of character — which we puzzled over as we were still working out that character on paper…everything was in character at the time.

But we digress. As we reflected on the scene, we found we were right in our original assessment of the character, but then we started thinking about the fact she hadn’t noticed her perfume. Then we thought about the fact that our culture has a real odor phobia. Bodies simply aren’t allowed to smell like, well, bodies. We live in fear of our natural scents — which is fascinating because they say scent is the most powerful of the senses.

Yes, we, too, are starting to think we internalized the recent Nobel Prize stuff and this is our own personal celebration.

Slate takes a look at scent in modern fiction and wonders if maybe a little too much Arrid Extra Dry has been used.

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