When a review is not a review?
I’ve been trying to work my way through ‘Perfumes: The Guide’ by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez. This is happening in fits and starts, because the obvious glee with which the two of them render their opinions is thick enough to slice up like polenta, fry, and serve alongside a wilted spinach salad with heirloom tomatoes and kalamata olives. Don’t forget the cheap battery-acid pinot grigio, by the glass.
‘Schadenfreud, party of two? Your table is ready…’
And it’s not even that I take issue with some reviews (of course I do, I’m an opinionated nose-governed bitch that way, and I know my aromatics), it’s just that this book is not a definitive guide by any stretch of the imagination. Just like none of the self-described ‘guides’ are.
I think this book is more for the hoarders and collectors among us. And it’s not even a coffee table book with eye candy pictures, so much as a weirdly organized encyclopedia. If I had to take issue with anything beyond that, it’d be that the format is too big to slip into my purse when I take the train, but too small to warrant throwing into my messenger bag when I’m on my bicycle.
Which relegates it to bathroom reading, more than anything else.
May 22, 2008 at 12:35 am
I’ve been reading this book on and off for several weeks and can say it is hands down the most poorly organized guide book I’ve ever seen. The index is organized in five categories, ranging from five stars to one star. so if you’re attempting to locate their review of a specific fragrance you have to hunt through all of the categories. It’s very difficult to use and not nearly as interesting as I had hoped. There are so many perfumes that are not included and others that seem to be included for reasons known only to these authors, overall, a huge disappointment.
May 22, 2008 at 5:16 am
I know, I know. The index is impossible, and I ran into the same problems you did with trying to look up specific fragrances that way, only to see this rating system being used for sorting. Who the heck sorts in that fashion? Do it as a creative perspective, but use a regular index, too. For heck’s sake, at least put a page number next to each scent in the section preceding the un-index, so we know what pages the top tens appear on, eh.
In the end, I think that if one looks at the book from the blogging standpoint, it almost has a sense of order. Just imagine those ratings are within a tag cloud, and look for mention of specific perfume houses like Guerlain and Creed and ___. But I think I’m having to work too hard as the gentle reader, if I have to come up with an analogy to make sense of something.
And I had complaints similar to yours on what was included and what was not.
June 13, 2008 at 8:29 pm
But the book is arranged in alphabetical order. Why do you need an index? Also, although we might disagree with some of the authors’ assessments, the reviews are brilliantly written and just a pleasure to read. I find the information about reformulation of the classics to be helpful and interesting, and the lack of snobbishness is clear in reviews of fragrances by Hummer and some of the Creeds. I think it’s meant to be a great browsing book rather than a scholarly reference.
June 14, 2008 at 6:30 pm
the bathroom is exactly where it landed here, too! it’s best read in small doses. and clearly, the bit about it being a definitive guide has to be publisher marketing hype. they must’ve known it wasn’t anything close to definitive. your blog analogy is interesting - in a way the book is an archive of blog reviews by two writers. so why did i buy it when there are so many wonderful blog reviews available? the answer is turin. i wanted to read his reviews, having read and enjoyed some earlier ones in french. i was admittedly less interested in paying to read the thoughts of a fellow blogger/reviewer. no offense to sanchez, who writes well, it’s just that turin’s the one i wanted to hear more from, because of his creds and his prior reviews. am i the only one?
June 15, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Rory said,
“But the book is arranged in alphabetical order. Why do you need an index?”
Erm, because I’m a troglodyte when it comes to commercial perfumes and need a lot of guidance on who makes what, and when, and could not tell you the first thing about whether Elizabeth Arden made a green tea first, or if it was Bulgari.
It’s a minor quibble, but it would be helpful. Alphabetical doesn’t do anything for me, unfortunately.
I’ll just have to disagree on it being a pleasure to read, too. Sorry.