Why Smell is Evocative and the Destruction of Perfumes.
My editor at Random House, Scott Moyers, and I cut many different scenes
of different kinds from the manuscript for various reasons. We cut the following...
Extreme-Pressure Diving, Spicy Food, and Smell Failure.
An anecdote showing the randomness of clues and hints that go
into Turin's brand of scientific research.
The Terrors of Creating a New Theory. Although the terror
over "does it smell of benzene or truffles?" nicely illustrates
the agonies Turin went through at almost every step, we cut this
paragraph simply for length...
Sticking a Laser up his Nose and Emailing Perfumes.
To simplify the narrative through-line, we cut this from the chapter
"Russia." This is a failed experiment that illustrates both a
fascinating offshoot line-of-thought toward proving Vibration and the scientific
process, which is composed mostly of failures.
The Problem of the Language of Smell. A single paragraph
that describes our utter lack of a common language to talk about smell.
Primary Smells, Blackcurrent, Anosmias, and
Dewberry (Science-Perfume Raw Materials). Despite the lovely, and
very weird, anecdote involving jasmine, black current, and the Dewberry
used by The Body Shop, we decided to cut this section simply due to length.
It is...
Experimental Near-Death in Moscow. A
terrific example of a great scene cut from the "Russia"
chapter purely for narrative clarity. (Again: Without knowing the
book, this scene will be completely meaningless.) Turin is in the
office of the Russian chemist...
Vision-Smell Analogy (Science). This section
was cut, from the "India" chapter, out of the lunch scene
in Koshy's restaurant where Turin debates the homing pigeon mystery
and defends his theory to Arjun, Aditya, and Manisha while they
eat....
Guido Machmueller. A brief,
delightful, and sad interlude involving an enthusiastic young German
chemist. Cut from "Writing."
Merck, Pfizer, Rhone-Poulenc, Bayer, and Eli Lilly
vs. Givaudan, Quest, IFF, Ferminich, and Takasago. I
regretted cutting this section of scene from the "India"
chapter for space reasons and am glad to be able to give it to you
here...
On the Yacht "Les Trois Soeurs" and
the Fragonard Perfume Launch. This is actually
two sections Scott and I cut to streamline the narrative. It contains
an account of a very well-known perfume (we've hidden the name,
but undoubtedly some of you reading this are wearing it right now)
that was declared poisonous and...
Chinese Murder Mystery. I'd
sent this episode to Scott Moyers, my Random House editor, and he
pointed out correctly that it has nothing to do with smell, but
I include it here for fun. It was cut from the chapter "Creation."
Book Titles. We went
through numerous possible titles...
Comparison: The Book's Narrative Structure.
