An hour spent inhaling books among their shelves (with the curtains closed) can summon any of the following: wet woodchips in the play-park, primary-school chairs, jumble-sale trousers, garden mud, aeroplane-cabin fumes, rubber bands, sawdust, polluted seaweed, spreadable cheese, ice-cream cones, church furniture, continental hotel rooms upon arrival, farmyards, varnish and paint in a shed, rusty batteries, a chemistry classroom, burnt toast and old two-pence coins.
Some of these scents must be worked for, some are instant. Not many are pleasant, and yet that doesn’t matter; they are distinctly book odours. Any other musty item would be dismissed to the washing machine or bin. On a book, mustiness equals charm and presence.
The perfumes of the pages are wildly varied. An old hardback wears damp proudly; a new paperback is subtle and sweet. While each title’s aroma is distinctive there are general scents, which is of enormous comfort to the book lover. It makes for a settling feeling, like snatching a whiff of other people’s home-cooking while passing their houses. These pages may carry parts of our lives on them – the scent of a room from an old house, or a Grandad’s Lambert & Butlers. They catch our throats in more ways than one.
The new book can spur strong feelings too, though this time of a less reflective, and more exultant nature. To prise open a weighty new hardback or fan through a paperback can be to expose ourselves to an infusion of bracing, fresh pages. This scent feels almost beyond description because its identity as ‘new book’ is so tangible in its own right, but it is closest to vinegar on fish and chips. That this comparison is with an edible, supremely evocative entity is probably no mere coincidence. The new book is tantalising and unleashes the same juices as does a favourite meal when placed down on the table in front of us.
One book can remind us of another and lead us to discovery. The picture section in a brand new autobiography’s yeasty fragrance takes us instantly to the television or comic annuals we loved in our youths. Reaching for one such bygone volume, we may find the scent to have changed, now evoking an elevator just after a smoker has exited. It seems suddenly logical: of course the smell of a book changes over time. It develops and gains character, reacts to its surroundings. There appears to be no science to it – opening the exact same edition of the same novel on the same page, one copy can evoke old buses, and one Play-Doh. When all of these aromas mature and collide, a book room reaches the divine status of being identifiable as such with eyes closed. Its volumes have draped themselves across its atmosphere.
This is not a fetish. It matters because of the visceral pleasure it brings, and because it shows that books strike senses beyond just our sight.