Ένα από τα πιο ιδιαίτερα βιβλία, αν όχι το πιο ιδιαίτερο, που έχω διαβάσει. Αγγίζει με τόσο όμορφο τρόπο τις υπαρξιακές αγωνίες, τον φόβο του θανάτου και τον μυστικισμό, που ένιωσα πως μαθαίνω τις έννοιες "άνθρωπος", "ζωή" και "κόσμος" ξανά από την αρχή. Η αλήθεια είναι πως οι δευτερεύουσες ιστορίες με κούρασαν στην αρχή, όμως η βασική ιστορία άξιζε και με το παραπάνω!

Seneler, seneler önce okuyup aşık olduğum ve hala ne zaman bir "pancar" görsem aklıma gelen kitap. Yeniden okumalı.

6/5. Just too good. Desert Island Read. A 5-tiered cake of Hero’s Journey.

Διασκεδαστικό ανάγνωσμα, μπόλικη φαντασία με φιλοσοφικές προεκτάσεις για τις ανθρώπινες απολαύσεις. Η επιμέλεια, η μετάφραση και η απαράδεκτη γραμματοσειρά με δυσκόλεψαν κατά την ανάγνωση.

Bu kitap yıl boyunca okuduğum nice kitabın şahı. Yazarın böyle bir konuyu nasıl keşfettiğin hiç anlamadım. Ama yazdım oldu da dememiş, öyle güzel inceleyip güzelleştirmiş ki, her satırının gerçekliğine okurunu ikna etmeyi başarmış.
Aldığım notların hepsinin karşılığını buldum.
Gerçek oladığını bilsem de gerçek olduğuna inandırdı bu kalem beni.

Are you kidding me with this? Nothing more than pseudophilosophical flim-flam that's too clever again by half. It's too crude to be taken seriously, too serious to be dismissed out of hand.

I loved every minute.

4 stars. Especially recommended for Discordians and Illuminatus! fans.

Knyga keistenybė, kaip "Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy" - love or hate. Net jei nusibosta, vis tiek love or hate - dviejų kelių nėra, nėra.

Aš visą laiką svyravau tarp love or hate. Labai juokinga ironija - BET čia pat bjaurūs seksistiniai a la girto dėdės bajeriai. Smagi istorija - BET čia pat tiek ištęsta, vis besišakojanti tai ratais kvadratais, tai neaišku kur. Kandus stilius - BET čia pat bilekiek gramatikos ir turbūt vertimo klaidų. Kaip mylėti tą knygą?? BET ir kaip nemėgti??

Siužetas plėtojasi keliom linijom:
- Karalius Alobaras iš Viduramžių bando pabėgt nuo mirties, galiausiai per visokias dvasines praktikas su žmona atranda nemirtingumo formules. Nori sukurti fancy kvepalus.
- Kvepalų imperiją valdanti šiuolaikinė šeima patiria vadybinimo sunkumų.
- Kvepalų gamintoja bando pagamint ką nors pelningo, jos padėjėja šnipinėja ir pardavinėja info kvepalų imperijai.
- Kvepalų gamintojos anūkė tūsina su vyrais, moterim, nori sukurt pelningus kvepalus ir turėt daug pinigų.

SPOILER: visos linijos susijungia (ir Alobaro iš Viduramžių, taigi jis atradęs nemirtingumą). Kvepalų nesukuria, bet taip lengva, kad visi gali bandyt: burokų žiedadulkės, jazminai, citrina. Visi miega su visais. Pasakotojas labai ironizuoja. Atrodo, lyg skaitytum Undinę, tik kad su visiškai daugiaspalve, plačiai aprėpiančia istorija.

Bučinys dar nebuvo išrastas, todėl Alobaras savo nosimi patrynė Almai nosį. (p. 24)

O kas gi čia? Jo šešėlis susirado kompanioną - kitą šešėlį, šiek tiek mažesnį, bet žmogaus. Jei mano šešėlis ne vienas, ar tai nereiškia, kad ir aš turiu draugiją? O jei tas šešėlis nutaikęs į mano šešėlį ietį, ar jo draugužis nebus ieties nukreipęs į mane, samprotavo buvęs karalius Alobaras. (p. 34)

Madam bijojo skųstis policijai, tačiau spaudai ji vis dėlto pasiskundė. O spauda su pasimėgavimu daugybę kartų perpasakojo jos skundą visai Luizianai. (p. 287)

Tirpstančio sniego melsvumo akimis į pasaulį jis žvelgė kaip smalsus meškiukas į savo tėvo meškino suktybes. (p. 140)

Jei laukiniai žvėrys mokėtų kalbėti, įdomu, ar jie kalbėtų taip, kaip kalba žvėreliai animaciniuose filmukuose? [...]
O gal žvėrys kalbėtų Hemingvėjaus kalba: trumpais, konkrečiais ir aiškiais sakiniais, kurių kiekvienas žodis tarsi glotnus, krauju permekrtas akmenėlis? [...]
Bet paklauskime jų ir pamatysime.
- Ar šiuo keliu į šiaurę nepraėjo vyras su moterimi?
Elnias papurto ragais:
- Neee.
- Moteriškė tamsi ir gundanti, vyras žilstelėjęs. Tikrai nematei jų?
- Tikrai.
O gal tu matei, - klausiame lapino, - bizantiškais drabužiais apsitaisiusią porelę, keliaujančią į Bohemiją?
- Šiandien vakarienei sukirtau narą, - neskubėdamas atsako lapinas. - Gardumėlis. Mano vertybių skalėje maistas ypač svarbus. Miške šiąnakt buvo tylu, o tyla lapinui yra gera byla. (p. 151)

Nu kaip nemylėt? BET vis tiek skaityt atsibodo :D

BET taip gražu - kad kvapo pojūtis išnyksta paskutinis, kad "praradęs regėjimo, klausos, netgi lytėjimo pojūčius, mirštantysis dar gali užuosti" (p. 222). Nežinau kiek laiko praleidau galvodama apie tai, kaip žmonės miršta, kokiose aplinkose, ką gali užuosti, kaip jiems tai virsta dangumi ar pragaru. Už tą atvertą kosmosą - +1 žvaigždutė.

Koku, en eski anılarımız için bir kanaldır. Beri yandan, gelecek yaşamımıza da bizimle birlikte girebilir. Bu arada da insanı keyiflendirir, hayal gücünü körükler, düşünceleri biçimlendirir, davranışı değiştirir. Geçmişle en güçlü bağımız, geleceğe olan yolculuğumuzda en sadık yol arkadaşımızdır. Koku pekala edebiyatın simgesi olabilir."
3/5

This was … a trip. Simultaneously several road trips in parallel to one another and A TRIP. Maybe I’ve sniffed that perfume bottle one too many times.

We start in Seattle with meeting part-time waitress and amateur-perfumer Priscilla. Then, the focus shifts to New Orleans to a perfumer / shop owner (the stepmother of the aforementioned waitress) and her assistant before shifting once more, this time to a large perfume company in Paris. Yes, it’s all about the smell.
Like the godawful smell of Pan (see what I did there ;P).
But there is another level to the story, because in the 8th century, a powerful king successfully escapes regicide (it’s tradition in his kingdom to be killed off at the first signs of aging). He travels the world through the centuries, meeting a widow in India. Yes, there is a love story and some immortality there, too.
But what does all that have to do with a 300-year-old bottle with only a few drops left of the perfume it contained? And, most importantly, why are there beets everywhere?!

The author has a very peculiar writing style that not everyone will warm up to. At times, he’s almost cartoonish, some of the views on women (as seen in descriptions and comments) are definitely dated (the book is from 1984) but never too offensively so if you ask me.
Like I said before, it’s a trip. A trip through time, a trip to discovery (of several things), a trip through a world of astral planes and ancient deities.
And the author managed to incorporate quite a number of musings that may seem weird at first glance (like "Why would you even invest so much time into thinking about this?!" weird) but are actually spot-on and not as trivial on second glance. However, he does so in a very light way so you need to pay attention to notice it in the first place.

It’s certainly not the best story I’ve ever read (the middle plateaued for a while) but it’s solid and I enjoyed the flair of it as I’ve never encountered a story quite like this before - the weirdness and writing style made me chuckle often. In that regard it certainly also fit since it’s a story about Pan and that guy was seriously weird. Consequently, I did as the author intended: I simply enjoyed myself. I’ll still not warm up to beets however, and that’s final.

Ξυπνάς ένα κρύο χειμωνιάτικο πρωί, έχοντας δει ένα πολύ καλό όνειρο και μένεις τυλιγμένος στη ζεστασιά και τη θαλπωρή του παπλώματος ή της κουβέρτας, χωρίς να θέλεις να σηκωθείς από το κρεβάτι και χουζουρεύεις για όσο περισσότερο χρόνο γίνεται, εισπνέοντας παράλληλα μυρωδιές από ένα πλουσιοπάροχο πρωινό που ετοιμάζεται στην κουζίνα. Ε λοιπόν, κάπως έτσι θα περιέγραφα την εμπειρία της ανάγνωσης αυτού του βιβλίου. Θεσπέσιο.

i've found that with tom robbins' novels, you either love it or hate it. i hated this one. disappointing since so many people have told me that i "HAD" to read it, assured that i would just love it. for the record, i liked 'still life with woodpecker' and 'skinny legs and all.' i didn't care for 'even cowgirls get the blues' and thought this one was so full of shit that the topic of perfume was so sorely needed to cover the overwhelming stench. maybe i just wasn't in the right mindset. maybe i'm over his pompous prose and veiled quasi-misogynistic crap. maybe i just don't like old white guys writing southern black women in phonetics. oooh-ee, massa, tom robbins ain't no race-iss. tom robbins an ar-teest, mm-hmm. take a flying leap, jitterbug perfume. twilight was more entertaining than you.

(i'm going to get so much flack for this. i can feel it coming. but really, what the hell do i know? i'm just one dumb woman, right?)

"The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being."

“Jitterbug Perfume” is a novel that starts out with 4 separate story lines. And then about 120 pages or so into the text the 4 stories slowly start to come together. As the tales become more and more entwined one cannot help but marvel at the genius of Tom Robbins.
The middle of the novel has moments that might get a little too heady for the casual reader, and therefore might come across as slow reading. Just plow through and make sure to pay attention. Robbins is setting something up for later in the text.
Par for the course with a Robbins text, his use of figurative language is astounding. Especially impressive in this book are some of his insanely creative similes. How does this man do it? On page 60 there is a metaphor about the air in Louisiana as an obscene phone call from nature. It is brilliant, you know immediately what he is saying, and it is typical Robbins. Also incredible in this book is the thematic use of beets as a metaphor that is so apt that when it is finally revealed you wonder at how you missed it.
The last chapter, called “The Bill” is simple, astounding, and very profound and a killer manner in which to end this novel.
In “Jitterbug Perfume” Tom Robbins use of the sense of smell to propel his theme is creative and so practical. It makes perfect sense. This is one of the best Robbins I have encountered so far, and it will guarantee that I continue the journey.