Remembering Smell

by Bonnie Blodgett

In November 2005, Bonnie Blodgett was whacked with a nasty cold. After a quick shot of a popular nasal spray up each nostril, the back of her nose was on fire. With that, Blodgett—a professional garden writer devoted to the sensual pleasures of garden and kitchen—was launched on a journey through the senses, the psyche, and the sciences. Her olfactory nerve was destroyed, perhaps forever. She had lost her sense of smell. 

Phantosmia—a constant stench of “every disgusting thing you can think of tossed into a blender and pureed”—is the first disorienting stage. It’s the brain’s attempt, as Blodgett vividly conveys, to compensate for loss by conjuring up a tortured facsimile. As the hallucinations fade and anosmia (no smell at all) moves in to take their place, Blodgett is beset by questions: Why are smell and mood hand-in-hand? How are smell disorders linked to other diseases? What is taste without flavor? Blodgett’s provocative conversations with renowned geneticists, smell dysfunction experts, neurobiologists, chefs, and others ultimately lead to a life-altering understanding of smell, and to the most transformative lesson of all: the olfactory nerve, in ways unlike any other in the human body has the extraordinary power to heal.

 

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Science, Book Club, Biography, Biography Memoir, Medical

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Gretchen Rubin]

So many people these days are losing their sense of smell because of COVID-19. In this account, Blodgett recounts her experience after losing her sense of smell from using Zicam. It's a powerful tribute to the power and importance of this sense.

[May-Ling · Rating 2 out of 5]

i got about halfway through and then put the book down. i have an extremely strong sense of smell (as witnessed by winning this round in survivor saratoga!), so i'm fascinated by the senses and how it relates to our humanity. going through the shock and disorientation of losing her sense of smell with the author was pretty amazing. i appreciated her perspective and i feel for her.

when she started to meet with scientists and discuss what smell means to us, that's where i lost interest in the book. it's so frustrating when people or journalists choose to interview experts and interpret findings like women (insert all of these complex sensations and behaviors) and men just want to check on basketball scores. i can't stand gender generalizations like that and after running into them a couple of times, promptly shut this book.

[Molly · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Edited*
I just didn't care for it. The premise is interesting- no doubt, we don't realize how integral smell is to our daily operations, memory, and general well-being. And to suddenly lose it, like the author? Oh, that's awful. For real. But... when the author starts comparing herself to a chef with tongue cancer and saying that he's LUCKY, I was completely done with her self-pity and sense of 'poor me, this is the worst thing in the world.' Smell is important, and it would be devastating to suddenly lose it. But... I'm gonna go ahead and say it- there are DEFINITELY worse things that could happen. Yes, given a choice I'd rather lose smell than eyesight, and I don't feel bad for saying it.

[Gina Scioscia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A friend gave this book to me to read because I am an anosmiac, having lost my sense of smell at an early age.
I wanted to like the book more, but it needed a better editor--It takes a special skill to write about science and the chapters devoted to the science of smell could have been the more interesting ones in the book, yet they came across hodge-podge and boring. The rest of the 'memoir' was about the author coping with the loss, full of extraneous details about her life, and I found her to be less than empathetic toward others with more grievous losses.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

An unfortunately amateurish effort by a woman who lost her sense of smell after using Zicam. This book combines memoir and science, and neither is very satisfying: the memoir is a bit whiny and long-winded, and the science comes straight from the Natalie Angier school of pop science writing. The arrangement of the chapters here gives no forward momentum or sense of a story--it's as if the author wrote twenty somewhat rambly magazine articles and put them together in a book.

[Merri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I lost my sense of smell at a very young age or may have been born anosmic. I found much of the scientific information to be of interest and explained a lot about my own experiences. I have never been diagnosed by a specialist and plan one day to determine why I cannot smell. My present physician wouldn't give me the time of day when I brought it up as an adult.

[Cliff Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

We take so much for granted -- our intellectual faculties, our daily breath ... and our sense of smell. Blodgett, through her personal experience, takes us on a journey through what life is like without the latter. Some of the results you probably already know, but I guarantee others will be new to you. She is a descriptive, compelling writer.

[Emma Isenberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise of this book was really interesting. I picked it up because I thought it’d be more of a personal account of the writer losing her sense of smell all the way to how she lives without smell now. Most of this book is scientific explanation and research on how smell works and how loss of smell is associated to mental health and other illnesses. To be honest, very uninteresting and disorganized.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bonnie Blodgett, a garden writer from the Twin Cities, tells the story of how, after using an alternative, over the counter nasal spray cold remedy she lost her sense of smell. This loss had a devastating effect on her personal (as well as professional) life. It is an interesting story...but...

Blodgett writes in the afterward about how, half way into the book project, she tried to pitch more of a memoir to her editor. The editor said no. I got the sense that Blodgett was trying to straddle both genres (personal stories and scientific/creative nonfiction)and what we get is less satisfying than what I imagine could have been done if she had stayed with a single approach. I also found her narrative style a little overwrought (and pretentious). Yeah, so are some of my reviews, but I'm a reader not a writer, baby.

[Ellis · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not really a memoir; while it is about the author's loss of her sense of smell after using Zicam nasal spray (note to all: do not use Zicam!) it's more about the sense of smell itself, how the brain processes odors, a lot of business about pheremones & how taste is tied to smell and all that. I confess that I found all of the scientific information boring. I also did not like the author at all; I wanted to feel sympathetic to her but I just thought she was whiny.

[Krissy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as exquisite as Diane Ackerman's Natural History of the Senses, but still an insightful look at the signficance of scent in our lives, memories, and brain chemistry.

[Jenny Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive, whiny, and filled with attempts to drag in scientific issues which the author clearly doesn't understand. I gave up reading half way through and skimmed the rest.

[Raman K · Rating 1 out of 5]

Learned a lot about smell. It was just boring and i skimmed through it. There was good facts in here but I didn't think it should have been made into a book.

[Funkhauser · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ironically this book really stinks

[Hezekiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I found this book fascinating. The neuroscience of smell compared to other senses is a topic that interests me, moreso since last winter I lost most of my sense of smell for a few months as a lingering effect of COVID-19. I didn't lose it completely like the author did (and I've never had scent hallucinations), but she was absolutely spot on with describing how losing the sense of smell dulls the whole world, far beyond experiences of food.

Like the author, I am also very emotionally connected to my sense of smell, though for different reasons than hers. I went into this book expecting a combination of science and memoir, and for the most part it did not disappoint. But when it did disappoint, it was extremely concerning.

There were some parts that were more conjecture than reporting on research, which I found off-putting. If the author were a biologist or social scientist (or even someone who wasn't cis and straight, when talking about gender and sexuality), her conjectures wouldn't have been so off-putting, but even with her caveats about being out of her expertise, it was inappropriate much of the time.

She occasionally remarks on the phenomenon of smell loss (or smell reappearing) correlating with weight changes, and how olfaction affects one's levels of hunger and satiety hormones, and she wonders if food manufacturers manipulate the smell profile of high-fat foods on purpose. She mentions how (newly) sorry she feels for fat people in light of learning about how disrupted hunger and satiety hormones can affect weight. (The research she reports on doesn't make an assumption of "eureka! this is what causes all fatness!") She point-blank states that she previously assumed we fat people were just gluttons who don't have the moral character required not to overeat. It would have been fine for her to speculate that her anosmia altered her hunger and satiety cues, and for her to relate this to her own weight changes, and even for her to relate how she felt compelled to lose weight. But she didn't stick to her own experiences, and just assumed that her reason for weight gain (inadvertently overeating) was the reason for all weight that's judged by society as "too much."

I recommend skipping the entire gender and sexuality chapter. The arguments involve the idea of prehistoric humans following the recently-debunked "man the hunter, woman the gatherer" division of labor, the specter of pheremones as an explanation for human behavior as complex as infidelity, the labeling of lab rats that engage in same-sex sexual behavior after having their pheremone senses altered as "gender confused," and brain scans being interpreted in ways that equate straight man sexuality with lesbian sexuality (and straight woman sexuality with gay man sexuality), and using the words "masculine" and "feminine" to describe (heterosexual) reproductive behaviors in animals. (In my queer transgender opinion, calling rat mounting "masculine behavior" makes as much sense as calling bathing a "feminine" activity.)

There's inconsistency in the book about what a pheremone is, when discussing the possibility of humans having them. In rats and fruit flies, pheremones directly cause reproductive behaviors, like mounting or going into the lordosis position, and there is no choice involved; they will do it no matter what. Humans are neurologically able to choose to stop doing a reproductive behavior at any time, and at no point in the book does the author mention this problem when describing how various researchers have responded to the question of whether human pheremones exist. A major criticism of the idea that humans have pheremones is indeed that humans *choose* how and whether to respond to feeling arousal and attraction. (Humans don't go into heat, and even the most attraction-driven straight cis dude doesn't act on every attraction he has.)

In passing, there's also reference to the tongue map and menstrual synchrony myths as if they're true facts. The section with the menstrual synchrony has evopsych conjectures that fail to consider that if half of the prehistoric human group gives birth at the same time, that is extremely disadvantageous for the group's survival. There's also a weird conjecture that abstract thought requires language? I don't even know how it related to olfaction. The idea of language as a prerequisite for experiencing abstract thought is not innocent and has been used to harm babies, deaf people and people with language disabilities; it's still used to harm those groups. My thoughts are not all in words, and many autistic people's thoughts are not in words.

Overall, I liked the parts of the book that stuck to memoir and to reporting on science without inappropriate conjectures about gender, fat people, linguistics and sexuality.

[Jeanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book because a friend said I should. It is interesting but the author takes some random sidetrails that really detracted fr.the overall book. This is a fascinating explanation of the science of how the sense of smell works and how the loss can be devastating ( loss of taste, loss of concentration, loss of the ability to smell smoke, body odor, burning pans, gas leaks etc) Science seems to show a strong link between the loss of smell and Alzheimer's as well as ALS and a few other chromic diseases. There may even be a link w PTSD.
I also learned about a connection between ZICAM and smell loss. ZICAM settled a huge lawsuit back in the early 2000s. They are mot covered.by normal pharmaceutical law and oversight as they are homeopathic and do not have to prove much. I am now researching this but know I will not be using ZICAM or any other inhaled product after reading how inhaled things effect change in the brain. I am not an alarmist but will now be looking up more information on this.
The science of this was interesting, her story is fascinating but as a whole there were parts that were just very "look a bunny" distracting and odd.

[Isabella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blodgett's "Remembering Smell" tells her personal story with phantosmia--the "phantom limb syndrome" of smelling--and eventually anosmia--the total loss of smell--after her use of homeopathic cold remedy Zicam. Throughout the memoir she explores her connection with her sense of smell and how closely it is tied to her memories and experience of the world. She also delves deeply into the science behind smell, giving readers some background on the evolution of the most primal sense and how it wired into our deep brain as opposed to the periphery.

Ultimately, a very interesting read about a niche topic, Blodgett's "Remembering Smell" is informative, but a bit dry. In her acknowledgements, she speaks about how she originally sold the idea of the book as science non-fiction. I found that her wavering between a hard science book and memoir made the reading experience a little difficult, albeit worthwhile.

[Vickie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hear people say things, especially this past year during the Covid pandemic, like, "She's fine, she only lost her sense of smell." As an aromatherapist, my hope has always been to educate as many as possible to realize how important and nearly magical our sense of smell is: to appreciate it, to notice the natural scents around them, and value all that it does for us.
"Remembering Smell" is really good read with so much information. Don't put things up your nose, unless you are absolutely sure it's a good idea. Get rid of damaging artifically scented items in your home, homecaring, and personal care products. They are not good for your health.

[Lisa Funderburg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought this book out because of my own recent experience with anosmia. This book has so much potential. It needs a stronger editor to more seamlessly tie the science and memoir would help strengthen the threads. The science chapters almost seem to have been written prior to the memoir and glued in at separate intervals. They are dry to read. The author also clearly has a favorite child (Caroline, not Alex.) Every sentence written about Alex is almost disparaging. That sucks. I'm glad her sense of smell came back. It gives me hope.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bonnie Blodgett's sense of loss in losing her sense of smell is palpable. Remembering Smell: A Memoir of Losing and Discovering the Primal Sense is the narrative of her adjustment to anosmia. It starts with a cold, a spritz of Zicam, and then phantosmia - six months of smell distortion and phantom smells, Bonnie's being rot and decomposition.

The cycle of disbelief, loss and adjustment is so familiar. Blodgett uses science to try and explain the mystery of her loss, and medical research to blunt its overwhelming effect on her personal life and spirit. At first she loses weight as she loses interest in food, and then gains too much because smell no longer signals satiety. Cooking becomes dangerous when smell doesn't keep her attention and pots burn. Meals are unpredictable and unpalatable because she can't season and taste. She seeks scent in literature, and attributes point of view and character to how smell is described, used in the works. Without the poignant smell of ammonia or bleach, she loses interest in the simple routines of house cleaning and instead is lost in the loss of how her family home smells. The small act of putting on lipstick recalls how its colorful scent empowers a woman. She forgets to bath, not able to smell herself, and grieves that her husband's scent no longer sparks lust in the night. Blodgett is depressed, and on medication to smooth her transition to other sensory activators.

Just as some might seek some simple transference or pattern recognition in food texture or color, Blodgett seeks to substitute the texture and feel of a plant for its scent. Because Blodgett is a garden writer, this passage, about smell memory is painful:

"One night after Cam had fallen asleep, I made my way like a sleepwalker to my attic office where I kept pictures of my garden. Minnesota winters are so long, you forget what summer looks like. The first photo was of my back porch. I'd trained the fragrant American Beauty rose to a trellis on one of the posts, along with other aromatic vines. The idea was to create an olfactory symphony - composed of notes, just the way perfumers did it - with roses and wisteria as the high and middle floral notes and herbs as the less feminine but zestier and longer-lasting low notes. The potted herbs sat in three rows on the porch steps, like a family having their picture taken. There was the prim mother (a scented geranium on a standard), the paunchy dad (sweet basil in a round ceramic planter), the gnarled grandparents (sage and rosemary). There were various aunts and uncles too: lemon oregano, French tarragon, English lavender and thyme."

Skipped over some but not all of the science and medicine. Loved the narrative, grieved at the author's sensory loss and attempt to reconcile through her research, recall and writing. Really appreciate the research, footnotes and bibliography. Blodgett is lucky - her sense of smell returned.

--Ashland Mystery

[Leslie Zampetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blodgett's book is a good amalgam of memoir and science, heavy on the science. A well-known garden writer who developed phantosmia and then anosmia due to the over-the-counter cold remedy, Zicam spray, Blodgett delves into the neuroscience, physiology and psychology of smell. Much like Oliver Sacks, whom Blodgett obviously admires, she can take rather dry-sounding research and make it fascinating with real-life anecdotes. Ending on an upbeat note as her sense of smell begins to return, Blodgett nevertheless reminds us that our sympathy still belongs to those who continue to experience this little-known and less-discussed neurological disability.

[Allyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and would have rated it the highest had her writing been less silly. Her scientific discourse was great but some of her phrases and wording were too pedestrian and out of sync with the majority of the book. She made mention of her "yucks" in the acknowledgements and it made me want better editing for those. Also made me wonder who wrote most of it, or how much it was edited, and why it was edited incompletely.
Aside from that however, it provided a great discussion and exploration of smell and made me value my smell sense ever so much more.
A beautiful cover too.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book about Blodgett losing her sense of smell (after using Zicam, although she was never able to prove the link) for about a year. It is a very fine read when Blodgett writes her personal story--her resulting depression, almost losing her career as a garden writer, and the strain on her marriage and personal life. I had never really thought about how important the sense of smell is. BUT, unfortunately, three quarters of the book is an exploration of scientific studies about smell...and it quickly becomes obvious that Blodgett is not a good science writer--she even repeats herself almost word for word a few times (where was her editor?).

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in the midst of dealing with my own loss of smell (anosmia), followed by phantosmia.

It was cathartic to read about someone else's experiences, and feel a kinship. It can be isolating to feel like you're the only one experiencing a sense of emotional loss that comes with a major health change.

That said, the author lost me when the grief of her own sense loss, and the depression that followed, overwhelmed her - and overwhelmed her writing.

The scientific information was fascinating, and it did help me understand better what I was experiencing physiologically, but the personal drama could have / should have been edited out.

Overall, a worthwhile read.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the science part, but got a little tired of the author's response to her anosmia. She seemed a little overwrought by what was, to be sure, a really crappy experience. I had some sympathy for her, but when I got to the end and learned that she failed to protest her injury in court (against Zicam) or even call the FDA to complain, I was just pissed off. She wrote a whole book in which she bemoans the loss of her sense of smell, and drags us through her depression and weight gain and all the other issues she had, and then reveals that didn't have the guts? energy? time? to participate in the case against the company that injured her (and others!)? That's just wrong.

[Lisa Mcbroom · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is amazing how smell affects memory. The smell of watermelon makes me think of my grandfather. Cotton candy takes me back to my childhood and an ocean smell reminds me of the beach. Blodgett a writer and a gardener loses her sense of smell due to a sinus infection and taking Ziacam for it. She writes about how smell affects your memory, mental health and how hard it is for insurance companies to see this as an actual illness. The one negative point Blodgett comes across as snobby and condscending insuitating middle class people uses Febreeze as a perfume. I became weary of her lal de dah attitude.

[Lindquistheather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a true story of a woman who completely lost her sense of smell after using an over the counter nasal spray for a cold. There were parts of her story that totally fascinated me, but there wasn't enough of the story to keep me interested. There were chapters that read like a science text book that I just skimmed through. I was intrigued by the way she described how losing her sense of smell affected every aspect of her life, and that she would have rather lost her sight or a limb, than her sense of smell. It was an interesting read, but a little boring. I was wanting a "Still Alice" experience, but it wasn't that.

[S · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been living with anosmia since 1994 and even I found it hard to get through the book. As mentioned in the book, there's not much research on losing one's sense of smell and since it's one of the more useless senses, it doesn't receive much attention. I was genuinely excited to read the book but it got bogged down with way too much technical detail as a personal memoir and too much personal details for a technical book. Mary Roach is one of the few writers who come to mind when I think of those who have mastered that balance

[Donna Jo Atwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blodgett lost her sense of smell following a one-time use of a nasal inhaler. She intertwines her experiences with what she learned about the science of smell. The book goes back and forth--about the time my eyes would start to glaze at one more mention of receptors, she would switch to more personal information of the progress of what the loss of the sense of scent was doing to her personal life and how she was learning to cope with it.
Much more interesting than I expected.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was fine, but the author's grasp of the science is really not very good. I even tried to pretend that I wasn't a scientist who studies olfaction, and tried to read it from the point of view of the lay public - and some of it is just nonsensical. Also, she seemed to get most aspects of evolutionary biology spectacularly wrong - some points were so elementary that they could have been cleared up with a quick visit to Wikipedia. "Season to Taste" by Molly Birnbaum was much better.