Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 54

52 Popular Culture Review In literature, it is of course Patrick Suskind's 1985 best-seller novel Das Parfunfi that put both stenches and perfumes on the popular cultural map. All that seems needed for the sense of smell to really take off now is some technical invention of a cultural magnitude similar to the movie camera or sound recording and replay systems. Imagine the possibilities this could open up~possibiIities which Aldous Huxley, among others, already toyed with in his technofantasy Brave New World sixty years ago.^ In the following I want to focus on two of the numerous p>eculiarities in physiology, neurology, classification, and (verbal) representation that surround the sense of smell. Both concern the verbal codification of olfactory perception. First, there is the almost complete lack of an abstract vocabulary for smells as there is for vision, in particular for colors. We therefore commonly refer to smells in terms of their origins (it smells like . . . ; the smell of . . . ) . Second, although we lack a particular vocabulary, we seem to have little difficulty or doubt about referring to smells in the basic binary categories of good and bad, which are anthropologically as well as sodo-historically coded. The subsequent discussion is limited largely to the good side of the olfactory spectrum, specifically perfumes. Let us address the second point first with a hypothesis about the origin of these two categories. It is Freud who provides the starting point. His theorizing about the sense of smell places olfaction in a teleological process that leads, in fact has already led, to its virtual demise as a culturally relevant mode of perception. The decisive step in this course of events, according to Freud's admittedly speculative remarks, occurs some time in prehistory when humans begin to walk upright.^® The olfactory, before this event the guiding sense in n\an's sexual behavior (as can still be observed in certain animals), loses its function of regulating male-female attraction, which is taken over more and more by vision. Indeed, we fall in love at first sight, not at first smell~or if so we rarely talk about that. To elucidate this point further, let us also draw on Freud's concept of Eros and Thanatos, which can be fruitfully linked with his remarks on the sense of smell. Bad smells signify repulsion, corruption, decay, and ultimately death. The final reference point is the decomposing human body. For this our cultural histoiy provides numerous examples, for instance in the accounts of Nazi death camp survivors.^ ^ The underlying forces and the fear associated with them