Led by the nose

Continuing with our reflections on smell, a fascinating article in the New York Times on lethal smells. Oddly enough, though you have to be a Times subscriber (or pay) to read it there, you can see it here at the IHT for free. Go figger.

The article is by Luca Turin, probably the world's most famous nose, and deals with stinks rather than scents. And the lethality of no smell at all -- some of the most dangerous compounds have no smell at all, such as carbon monoxide, sarin gas (as used in the Tokyo subway attack in 1995) or nuclear waste. Turin writes:

• Consider that on a beautiful stretch of beach near Hartlepool, England, sits a factory that manufactures the smelliest flavors, those that make the instant noodle soup in the office microwave smell of leeks. Next to it is a nuclear power station. When the wind is from the northeast, the guys producing nuclear waste phone to complain about the smell of noodle soup.

Phosgene, according to a 1939 book on gases used in wartime, smelled of hay. Dichlorodiethyl sulphide smells of mustard (hence the name, mustard gas).

More on vile smells over at Scientific American (subscriber only) with an article on how researchers are cleaning up what are called (by Luca Turin, apparently) the "Godzilla of smells" -- a group of compounds called the isonitriles, which can cause you to heave your guts up at the slightest whiff.

Now here's a fine coincidence: the New York Times has a review by John Lanchester (author of the disappointing gourmet murder mystery The Debt to Pleasure) of Luca Turin's book, The Secret of Scent. He makes it sound enthralling:

• Turin has an extraordinary gift for writing about smell. Before he became interested in the science of smell, he was that rare thing, a brilliantly readable perfume critic. He is a biologist by training, based in London after a peripatetic career that eventually led him to the business of fragrance chemistry. He first fell in love with perfume while working in France, via an encounter with a Japanese perfume called Nombre Noir: “halfway between a rose and a violet, but without a trace of the sweetness of either, set instead against an austere, almost saintly background of cigar-box cedar notes. At the same time, it wasn’t dry, and seemed to be glistening with a liquid freshness that made its deep colors glow like a stained-glass window.”

And then what do you know? Up pops a review, in The Guardian this time, of a book by Lanchester himself, and its title? Fragrant Harbour.

To be fair, the book came out in 2002 (which is when the review dates from), and Lanchester's book is about Hong Kong (the title is the English translation of the city's name). So there's no connection between the various strands of this post at all, in reality. But I rather like the way the pieces tumbled out onto the table, giving the illusion of a pattern.