How do book-scented fragrances invoke memories? For a long time I have missed the smell of books, new and old, as well as that of newspapers. As I am completing a big project I treated myself to some book-scented fragrance that I recently found while Internet-shopping. While this might seem like a new thing, there are already several brands to choose from. I settled on one that is made in Germany, that looks elegant and that I thought would compliment my night table.Â
Here you go ~ Durfkerze: Aromantische Bibliothek:
This lit candle added a warm glow to my room as I was writing away on a cozy evening. As the scent of burnt wood weaved in and out of my nostrils, I felt like I was in my school days, huddled in a corner of an old library on a wintry day.
***
In recent years, many Hong Kong youngsters have been keen on portraying themselves as literati (the “learned class” or intellectual circle consisting of well-educated people who love literature). Men wearing thick-rimmed glasses and girls dressed in long skirts pose for pictures in upstairs cafes, one of those literati hotspots. Yet many of these people are merely faking it: they either do not really love books, or read but do not understand what they read.
I am not bragging when I said I was a member of the real “literati” in the old days. After all, this is nothing to be boastful of: being a book nerd was not even considered an attractive or fashionable trait when I was one and had that genteel, cultivated look. Not only did I study literature, but I spent my spare time seeking out the new books of Haruki Murakami at the Commercial Bookstore in Tsim Sha Tsui.
I read somewhere that Swindon, the English bookstore in Hong Kong, closed its branch in Lockhart Road in 2020. Besides the Commercial Bookstore, I used to visit Swindon’s Central branch–which still remains–once in a while for literary works and guess what, York/Cliff Notes too! On one occasion, I was desperately seeking the York Notes on William Wordsworth’s The Prelude. I thought I would never be able to tackle any exam questions on Wordsworth without it. Resources that I obtained from various sources were rather fragmentary. The shopkeeper, who looked learned and was very familiar with English books and literary texts (a rarity in this so-called international city), told me that he could order it for me. But then, it would take weeks or months for it to arrive! That incident happened before the Internet, let alone online bookstores, became popular. Now, book-hunting has become far easier job. What is regretful is that the original Swindon, or the Swindon I know of, and most importantly–what it symbolized–are long gone.
Talking about books, how can I ever forget those days I spent at Cambridge’s main library writing about literature? The library was old, as were many of its collections, and much older than me. Seemingly having a life of its own, its walls emitted a peculiar smell that mingled with the leaves of old books to form a heavy aroma –one that could be slightly suffocating especially on a rainy evening. Yet before my oral defense at the end of my first year, I stayed overnight at the library of Clare College. No, I was not burning midnight oil preparing for the exam. I felt so nervous at home that I could hardly sleep and, quite surprisingly, found the peace I craved at the college library–a much less formidable place than the main library–and one that I had almost never visited before that day.
***
It may amaze many of you that I currently have no more than ten books–in their hard copies–at my Berlin apartment. Nowadays people mostly read e-books, desperate warnings of health hazards that might be caused by spending hours staring at the computer screen.
As so much information is now digitalized, I seldom have to visit libraries now. The last time I visited physical book stores, it was in Cambridge on a chilly evening in early March 2023. I stayed in London on a three day trip and spent one day at my beloved alma mater. There were not many people around at Waterstones bookstore on Sidney Sussex Street. They were mostly middle-aged ladies with their young kids, and aged gentlemen for whom enjoying a book over a cup of coffee is likely one of their favorite pastimes. A few visitors had apparently entered the shop to escape from the drizzle outside. The Cambridge University Press bookstore, the university’s very official bookstore, was a minute’s walk away on the Triangle Building Shaftesbury Street. Like the university, it did not seem to have changed throughout the years. I spent some time hunting for my own work (published in 2019) and located it on a bottom shelf. Although it doesn’t have a café like Waterstones does, one can easily find a sofa in a secluded corner to idle away an afternoon with a nice book chosen from among its national bestsellers as well as its very own publications.
In the digital age, I also miss the smell of newspapers. During the four years that I wrote a weekly column for a Hong Kong newspaper, my dad would purchase a hard copy of it every Friday–the day my column appeared. Living abroad, I pictured the Friday newspapers piling up on my bookshelf at my old home. When I finally went home to take care of sick dad and, subsequently, to prepare for and attend his funeral, the old yellowish newspapers, emitting a faint ink-like aroma and neatly stacked up in a dusty corner of my bedroom, seemed to quietly mourn for him and a dying city.
***
This book-scented fragrance/candle is a treat that is both affordable and precious: soaking up the afternoon sun, sniffing the rusty aroma, and closing my eyes, I feel like I were back in the past, as a long train of vistas of places and treasured moments meander through my brain.