1 - Aromas of the Red Chamber

Summary

The canonical eighteenth-century novel Hongloumeng (Dream of the Red Chamber) archives the intangible heritage of perfume culture in late imperial China. Chapter 1 explores the material culture of perfume and the spiritual, philosophical, and social subtexts of smell through a close reading of the novel. I argue that the author Cao Xueqin’s engagement with the sense of smell is twofold. On the one hand, he illustrates how culture tunes neurons cognitively and aesthetically: smell acts as an embodied form of knowledge to conceptualize time, space, gender, class, sexuality, and morality; aromas also elevate the everyday into an aesthetic way of living. On the other hand, he indicates the fragility of this painstakingly choreographed order of things. Overall he weaves an allegory about contamination as an inevitable human condition through smell. Unwittingly he forecasts the onset of a modern olfactory revolution premised on the arguable impurity of China.