Daphne...and subtlety

Following my post about the fragrance and romance of Daphne Odora, here’s where this beguiling scent makes an olfactory appearance in The Lantern. During a work trip to Geneva, Eve makes the short journey around the lake and across the French border is Yvoire with its renowned Labyrinth of the Five Senses. In the maze in the grounds of the château, she meets Dom for the first time.

   I wandered quite happily on my own, unconcerned by the maze but ever more certain with every sense that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere in life. My so-called career was in a dull phase, and as such a reflection of my own limitations; it was one of the reasons I accepted the job that had brought me briefly to Switzerland. As for any social life, it seemed as if high tide had receded, leaving only wrinkles and minor wreckage to show for the fun.

   Then everything changed.

   There, in a living cloister of hornbeam, the air richly perfumed by a line of daphne, there was Dom.

                                                       From The Lantern

Those readers who enjoy subtlety will appreciate how the details in this tiny scene encapsulate many of the novel’s themes. There’s perfume, of course, but with the added implication (for those who are familiar with the show-stopping qualities of daphne) that this is a moment charged with heady romance. But it bears a warning too, from the mythological Daphne being chased by Apollo to her frightening transformation. You can draw your own conclusions about the hornbeam…

This is the introduction of the sensuous theme – the interplay of all five senses - and the garden, with all its Edenic associations, enclosed here around a puzzle.

Finally, in the plant daphne is the seed to the sub-conscious that leads Eve to read Daphne du Maurier. When she discovers that Dom’s ex-wife is called Rachel (another of du Maurier’s mysterious titular characters, from My Cousin Rachel), Eve is drawn to re-read Rebecca, and in her over-imaginative isolation, she will impose that story on her own situation.

My intention was show Eve intensifying her own experience in Provence, so deeply sensitive to every detail that the dazzling world she narrates is partly her unspoken escape from reality – into a hyper-reality formed of books and stories. This rose-tinted world masks her fears about the relationship, begun with such dreamy optimism in what seemed like paradise in the South of France.

For an author, there is nothing better than a reader/ reviewer who really understands what you have tried to achieve. I know there are plenty of others who feel that the descriptions in this book are overdone; it’s a matter of personal taste, after all, and also how quickly you want to skim along the surface of a book. The Lantern is currently on a TLC Book Tour (link here) and among some lovely and receptive blog reviews is one from Courtney at Stiletto Storytime, who made my heart sing when she wrote:

The Lantern is really a feast for the senses bringing both the past and the present to life through thoughtful descriptions (…) in such lush detail from the smell of a flower to the slant of the sun and yet you never feel overwhelmed by her details just included, (…) layering events, people and every day nuances just so throughout her writing. To read this book is to really be taken away from the average and thrust into another world. A world of sights, smells and mystery…

Thank you, Courtney – a posy of Daphne Odora for you! The whole review is here. And if anyone is interested in how I see the novel, including the reasons for the entanglement with Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, then click here.

 

 

Labyrinth of the Five Senses, Yvoire

Click on the link here for the garden website: Gardens at Yvoire

The sublime scent of Daphne

Intimations that winter is ending come in the scent of our English courtyard garden. The fragrant Daphne Odora blooms in February, its tiny pink and white flowers releasing a rich aroma of sugared lemon and creamy vanilla with a zesty edge of narcissus and a hint of warm ginger: an opulently romantic scent that blends sweetness and exquisite sharpness.

Once smelled, never forgotten. My moment of discovery was at Kew Garden’s Wisley outpost in Surrey – I was literally stopped in my tracks by the fragrance as I passed. It’s a source of some gardening pride that the baby shrub I planted shortly after we arrived at our house in Kent has grown into a fine bushy specimen in the shelter of an east-facing wall.

There was delight too in discovering the name of the plant, as Daphne had long been known to me in another context. One of the first books I ever read by myself, aged about five, was Tales of Long Ago, a collection of Greek and Roman myths retold by Enid Blyton. In that book, Daphne was the heroine of one of my favourite stories  – The Maiden of the Laurel Tree.

Daphne was a wood nymph chased by Apollo, though in Blyton’s version for children, the chase was in order to propose marriage, rather than attempted rape. When she called to the nature gods for help, they responded by turning her into a beautiful laurel tree. I still vividly remember the mounting horror of reading how Daphne found she could no longer run; her slender feet grew out and extended themselves deep into the earth as roots, bark began to cover her body, and she stood helplessly watching her arms grow into branches and leaves as the transformation took place. Beware of what you wish for, the tale seemed to say: don’t ask for help without having a good idea of what form that help might take!

Say what you like about Enid Blyton – even as a child, I found her prodigious output very variable: as exciting as the adventure stories could be, they were also very repetitive, and Noddy was boring beyond belief – but Tales of Long Ago showed the best of her. She had a way of writing that drew young readers in and made them want to read by themselves. And I can’t be the only person of a certain age who retains a good knowledge of the basic classical myths thanks to this publication! 

I tried to find the actual book but couldn’t, though I know it’s here somewhere among the thousands of books in this house. Andrew Lang’s The Brown Fairy Book, another childhood book is prettier anyway. This edition was published by Longman’s in 1934. The illustration plates are by Henry Ford - the kind of pictures that take you far away into a thrilling imaginative world, and bring back all kinds of memories and associations when you happen across them as an adult.