The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses
|
List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $3.09
Your Save: $ 21.86 ( 88% )
Availability: N/A
|
Manufacturer: Random House
Written By: Chandler Burr
|
Click on the Buy From Amazon.com link to know Amazon.com's best price & availability.
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 612.86
EAN: 9780375507977
ISBN: 0375507973
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2003-01-21
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: 2003-01-21
Studio: Random House
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews for The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses
|
For as long as anyone can remember, a man named Luca Turin has had an uncanny relationship with smells. He has been compared to the hero of Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume, but his story is in fact stranger, because it is true. It concerns how he made use of his powerful gifts to solve one of the last great mysteries of the human body: how our noses work.
Luca Turin can distinguish the components of just about any smell, from the world’s most refined perfumes to the air in a subway car on the Paris metro. A distinguished scientist, he once worked in an unrelated field, though he made a hobby of collecting fragrances. But when, as a lark, he published a collection of his reviews of the world’s perfumes, the book hit the small, insular business of perfume makers like a thunderclap. Who is this man Luca Turin, they demanded, and how does he know so much? The closed community of scent creation opened up to Luca Turin, and he discovered a fact that astonished him: no one in this world knew how smell worked. Billions and billions of dollars were spent creating scents in a manner amounting to glorified trial and error.
The solution to the mystery of every other human sense has led to the Nobel Prize, if not vast riches. Why, Luca Turin thought, should smell be any different? So he gave his life to this great puzzle. And in the end, incredibly, it would seem that he solved it. But when enormously powerful interests are threatened and great reputations are at stake, Luca Turin learned, nothing is quite what it seems.
Acclaimed writer Chandler Burr has spent four years chronicling Luca Turin’s quest to unravel the mystery of how our sense of smell works. What has emerged is an enthralling, magical book that changes the way we think about that area between our mouth and our eyes, and its profound, secret hold on our lives.
|
|
|
Consumer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:  
Summary: The tzar of hype
Comment: Somewhere one-third into the book I begun experiencing an impatience with glaring inconsistencies between presented facts and Burr's interpretation of these facts. Around the non-chapter captioned "Author's notes" I decided that the title of this book should be "The tsar of hype".
Burr's mission statement is to present "modern morality tale" about a brilliant scientist spurned by obtuse, self-interested establishment. The picture is in black and white: an idealistic prodigy against a horde of venal, self-centered blockheads, dedicated solely to preserving their tenures and salaries. Now, let's look at the facts. Dr. Turin did not discover anything or formulate his own theory. He suffered some career mishap, which he will not talk about, in the early days, and had to forgo research for teaching. Quite accidentally he happened upon Vibration theory, and decided to champion this idea to the scientific community and the fragrance industry. His own motive is materialistic: the use of Vibration might automate scent creation process and cut production costs by getting rid of highly paid chemists, who craft smell molecules. There's not a word about process inventor royalties, because we are expected to view Dr.Turin as a modern day martyr and not a frustrated gold digger which he appears to be. There is a story about his snubbing a lesser periodical interested in publishing his paper until a highly prestigious journal refused to take it. There are other stories about his use of family connections to reach perfume houses owners and CEO's. All this adds up to a portrait of a media-conscious entrepreneur, not a scientist.
We also get a glimpse of Turin's interaction with his colleagues in the detailed account of the conference in Coorg. I don't see why the quoted questions were considered hostile. Clearly the audience didn't trust hypothesis based on intuition and conjectures and insisted on empirical data. These never came, the only unquestionable expertise displayed by Dr. Turin being his ability to identify perfume worn by accidental passers-by.
On the bright side, Vibration and its prophet became popular in the circles of bedroom psychologists, aromatherapists and holistic health practitioners. Alas, we are plainly told that those are precisely the occupational groups which Dr. Turin disdains and would like to avoid any association with. Irony of fate?
The best footnote to this "morality tale" wrote stolid academic establishment itself, by granting in 2004 Nobel Prize to Dr.Linda Buck for discovery of DNA sequences related to smell. The name of Dr. Buck recurs in the story a few times, always in context of "poor proof" for the theory of Weak Shape. In fact, Burr insinuates that Dr. Buck's work is somehow inferior to intellectual feats of Dr.Turin. I couldn't help recalling the old adage "if the facts are against us let's deny the facts".
But, in spite of all its propaganda aspect, the story is interesting, and very frank about the lengths scientists are willing to go in order to reach fame, and perhaps riches. After all, it is a morality tale, though the reader is likely to arrive at a conclusion not intended by the author.
Customer Rating:
Summary: lucid, dramatic, important...
Comment: I read this after What the Nose Knows.
It is very well written, conveys complexity in a dramatic and coherent matter, and offers very good insights into a corner of theoretical and applied science that gets over looked in part because it is draws from biology, chemistry and physics. Very good characterization of Luca Turin, the scientist. Flavors of The Double Helix - science in action, the mad race. But also, a nice work on chemistry in action, a rarity. The work is important because many of our premises about sensory inputs, whether sound, color or scent, rely on very cloudy thinking about man/nature interfaces, and unexamined notions of what makes one input primary and another secondary. Has thought evolved since Leucipus?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascenating and Entertaining
Comment: I absolutly loved this book. An incredible glimpse into the world of high science. An amazing treast on smell and fragrance. Not my usual sort of read, but I recently became interested in perfumes which led me to this book. I would reccomend it to anyone; it is both a page turner and a fabulous education on the world of smell. Who knew it could be so interesting! First I've read by this author - he has two others I can't wait to get my hands on.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderful writing!,
Comment: Well written - hard to put down.
This book reveal the politics at the heart of the "scientific process" in a fascinating, entertaining, and completely personal way. Even the chemistry is made accessible and inspires a desire to learn more.
Burr's characterization of Turin is honest, funny and completely human. An excellent adventure! I can't wait to read more of his work!
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Emporor Of Scent
Comment: I read everything Chandler Burr writes. This is his most magnificent offering - easy to follow and wonderful to know. He switches back and forth from NY to France over and over until you are entirely entranced.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
More Information on The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses
iPac2.0
The emperor of scent: a story of perfume, obsession, and the last mystery of the senses / by Burr, Chandler, 1963-
The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last ...
The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses
Luca Turin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Burr, Chandler (2003). The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50797-3. Â Turin, Luca (2006). The ...
To the Best of Our Knowledge
Then, Steve Paulson talks with Chandler Burr, author of "The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses
Perfumer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Burr, Chandler (2003). The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50797-3.
Bookshare.org - Book Information
Book Information. The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses by Chandler Burr
Small Luxury Hotels | Rosewood Hotels & Resorts - Contact | Worldwide ...
... Burr, Scent Critic for T, The New York Times Style Magazine and author of The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses.
BookPage Nonfiction Review: The Emperor of Scent
Author Chandler Burr tells his strange tale in The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses. If you harbor the notion that perfume-making ...
Tantor Media Audiobooks : Chandler Burr
Chandler Burr is the New York Times perfume critic and the author of The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses and A Separate Creation.
Odorama - New York Times
THE EMPEROR OF SCENT A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses. By Chandler Burr. Illustrated. 318 pp. New York: Random House. $24.95.
|