The hedgehog revisited

I was talking to the editors at Sekwa publications, that translated and published L'élegance du hérisson, Muriel Barbery, in Swedish. I understood that a 2nd and 3rd print had been requested, so far reaching a volume of 18.000. A recent article about the publishing house and it's success here (in Swedish). Naturally, I have read the book and enjoyed the story about the friendship between Renée, the concierge in bourgeois Paris and Paloma, a twelve-year old girl living in the building, two extraordinarily intelligent individuals (women). Soon, Mr Ozu, a courteous Japanese man, is moving into the building and join their little circle of friends. It's sweet, it's insightful and even funny. My main critique was that I have read too many books lately switching narrative perspectives between different caracters in every second chapter. During summer I saw the movie, too. Instead of keeping her diary, Paloma is here filming her family member to their nuisance. Even though Josiane Balasko is doing a great performance as Renée I preferred the book.

The hedgehog, now in Swedish

The French novel the Elegance of the Hedgehog (L'Elégance du hérisson) by Muriel Barbery has now been published in Swedish: Igelkottens elegans . Critics were good and the book went straight to the top of the sales as most popular book at the internet bookstore adlibris. However, while the sales in France exceeded a million books, the Swedish edition is quite modest: 6500 for a start .

Guerlain Cravings

Oh, I just discovered this amazing coffret with a selection of 18 fragrances from Guerlain...

Shifts

I joined the Swedish group blog Skiften (in Swedish), blogging about the future society, shifts and disruptive evolution. There is 6 of us blogging and we comment on each others posts, and receive comments from readers, check it out!

Perfume - the Story of a Murderer

Too much nano- and microblogging and too little blogging lately. Still, I read the Perfume - the Story of a Murderer (1985), Patrick Süskind. I don't know what took me so long, it's a precious gem that turns around Jean-Baptise Grenouille in 18th century France. If it was originally written in French I would definitely had gone for that version, but no (it's in German). The novel explores the function of scent and contains quite a lot of technical descriptions of scent extraction, but not too much. Grenouille, born without any odour whatsoever, has an amazing sense of smell. He becomes an apprentice in the making of perfume and leaves Paris for Grasse, on a quest for the ultimate human scent.

A Year of Creativity and Innovation!

The next year has already started and in the European Union it will be the year of creativity and innovation, just great! The European Year of Creativity and Innovation has the objective to raise awareness of importance of creativity and innovation for personal, social and economic development, to disseminate good practices, stimulate education and research, and promote policy debate and development.

Pattern Recognition

"We have no future because our present is too volatile. […] We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern Recognition." /William Gibson

August Prize Laureates 2008

Per Olov Enquist received tonight the Swedish August literary award for his novel and autoportrait Ett annat liv (Another life), (Norstedts). This was his second time as August Prize laureate. In the category of non-fiction it was by Paul Duncan & Bengt Wanselius who received the August Prize for Regi Bergman (Bokförlaget Max Ström) about Ingmar Bergman's life long work and achievements. It is a heavy masterpiece!

The Sky is the limit

Summer reading

One Swedish novel that I read over summer and can recommend is "Motljus" by Annika Thor (born in 1950). Previously a well known author of books for youth, this is her first piece written for adults. In focus is a woman who reads the death notice of a man and ex-lover in the newspaper, which makes her recall the hot summers in the 70s when they were several friends to cohabitate in a summerhouse. The novel swings between the present and the 70s in every second chapter, a grip that is familiar and not very innovative but the author does pretty well. It's the stories from back then that are the driving ones, though.
Annika Thor received the literary award Augustpriset in 1997 and her novels have been translated into several languages.

Summer absence

Yes, I have been on vacation and offline - totally hot!

Spicy summer trend

The theme in my last perfume sniffing in Paris was clearly spicy. Un jardin après la mousson, Hermès, is said to be dominated by watermelon but to me the spicy scents of ginger, cloves and pepper are as significant as anything else. Also L'eau de l'eau, Diptyque, is less ozon-like than expected - instead the warm cardemom sweeps you away. As do the scent of chai-tea in Stephanie de Saint-Aignan's Berberiades Extreme.

Alain Robbe-Grillet

This week Alain Robbe-Grillet left us at the age of 86 years old, productive since his debute as an author in the 1950s. I met with him in Göteborg in 2003 at a seminar around his book "La Reprise". Many authors write to tell their story, while as Robbe-Grillet wrote to discover the world. One of his main characteristics was the optic; detailed descriptions of what could be perceived. Not surprisingly, one of the early titles was "Le voyeur" (1955). According to Robbe-Grillet it was old-fashioned to focus on plot, action, narrative, ideas, and character. Instead, he put forward a theory of the novel as focused on objects: the ideal nouveau roman would be an individual version and vision of things, subordinating plot and character to the details of the world rather than enlisting the world in their service. Robbe-Grillet was one of the main characters in the movement of the French new novel and published in 1963 the essay "Pour un nouveau roman". Other important figures were Nathalie Sarraute, Claude Simon and Michel Butor. I treated Michel Butor's "L'Emploi du temps" in my thesis in comparative literature and enjoy the complex construction that permits to get a new, deeper or just different, understanding even at the third and fourth re-reading.

Wooden scents

This weekend I do fragrances dominated by wooden scents, typically of sandalwood and cedar. Patchouli can also be frequently found in these perfumes. More often male fragances than female .
Egoïste, Chanel (1989)
A male fragance with body and caracter, definitely not for a young guy in jeans, rather something for Donald Trump.
Notes de tête: Mandarine, Bois de Rose, Coriandre
Notes de coeur. Rose Turque, Oeillet, Cannelle
Notes de fond: Santal, Vanille, Ambrette
Fahrenheit, Dior (1988)
This is an old favourite, masculin fragance.
Notes de tête: Aubépine, Chèvrefeuille
Notes de coeur: Bois de santal
Notes de fond: Cèdre, Patchouli
Bois d'Arménie, Guerlain (2006)
A calm, sincere, wooden feminine scent that belongs to the L'Art et la Matiere collection. I prefer this one to the more outgoing Cuir de Beluga.
Notes de tête: Encens, Iris. Poivre
Notes de coeur: Bois de Gaïac, Benjoin, Coriandre
Notes de fond: Baume copahu, Patchouli, Musque blanc

Stieg Larsson revisited

Depuis quelques semaines, et il faut le dire: après une publicité importante, tous les trois tomes de la série Millenium de l'auteur suédois Stieg Larsson se trouvent parmi les top 10 meilleures ventes de livres en France!
Quand j'ai lu le premier volet, Les hommes qui n'aimaient pas les femmes, mon impression était qu'il est trop long - si j'étais l'éditeur j'aurais été plus sévère et j'aurais réduit le nombre de pages, il faut parcourir environ 200 pages avant quelquechose se passe de tout . Ce que j'ai estimé le plus, c'est le personnage de Lisbeth Salander. C'est curieux que le portrait de la femme est tellement plus fort que le portrait de Mikael Blomkvist, le personnage principal masculin.

Les Chypres

Taking up on the review of the groups of scents, this weekend I have come to the chypres.
(Remind you there are oriental, chypres, leather, wood, fougère, green, ozon and floral scents.) Fragrances created using a base of bergamo, oakmoss and labdanum. The accord is named after the French word for Cyprus, where the base was inspired. Like the forest after the rain the chypres are often descibed. Once deep, sweat and heavy, nowadays they are more fresh, for instance with some citrus. Boisés, à la base de mousse de chêne, un mélange d’algue et de champignon. "Comme le forêt après la pluie" on décrit souvent les chypres.

Cabochard, Grès (1959)
Boisé, profond, presque lourd, très spéciale, me fait penser à un musée marin, des navires.
Notes de tête: Galbanum d'Iran, Ylang ylang
Notes de coeur: Roses de Bulgarie, Jasmin de Grasse
Notes de fond: Mousse, Vétiver, Musc, Patchouli
Soir de Lune, Sisley (2006)
Boisé mais plus leger. Agrumes, mimosa et miel dirigent mon association vers du thé.
Notes de tête: Agrumes, Coriandre, Piment, Muscade
Notes de coeur: Rose, Mimosa, Pêche
Notes de fond: Mousse, Patchouli, Miel, Musc, Santal
Yvresse, Yves Saint Laurent(1993)
Fleuri boisé, plus fruité par rapport aux autres. Autrefois nommé Champagne, YSL a dû changer le nom. Néanmoins ce parfum reste gaie et pétillant.
Notes de tête: Pêche, Abricot, Anis Etoilée, Cumin
Notes de coeur: Rose, Oeillet, Cannelle, Jasmin
Notes de fond: Vanille, Styrax, Bois de Cèdre, Castoreum

Editions de Parfums

If you are going to Paris you might consider to visit Editions de Parfums. Scent boxes makes it an interesting experience. Before you go there, you can get an individual advice via their web site and e-mail. My personal choice is Musc Ravageur (created by Maurice Roucel).
Sensual and sophisticated. Powerful yet perfectly controlled. Dramatic and mysterious. Musc Ravageur is a grown-up perfume, an uncompromising Oriental, which trumps current fads. Its explosive departure of bergamot, tangerine and cinnamon is set against a lusty backdrop of vanilla, musk and amber. No flowers, just a refined and exalted skin scent.

Re-reading the Fifth Discipline

I ordered Gary Hamel's new book, The Future of Management, to read over Christmas but before it arrived I decided to re-read the classic The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge (1990). If you too need to refresh your memory, the five disciplines are the following:
1. Building shared visions to foster commitment to the long term;
2. mental models that focus on the openness needed to unearth shortcomings in our present ways of seeing the world;
3. team learning that develops the skills of groups to look for the larger picture;
4. personal mastery fosters the personal motivation to continually learn how our actions affect our world;
5. and the fifth discipline is systems thinking, closely linked to a learning organisation.
I wonder how many learning organisations there are out there...too few...
To me it is obvious that organisations dealing with knowledge on high-level should develop as learning organisations. And yet, many managers seem to run them as factories.

Def: Systems thinking is a methodology evolving from the application of system dynamics; a strategic simulation tool aimed at mapping and modelling the global interaction of processes, information feedback and policy across organisational sectors. It is being used widely in health and social care to design sustainable patient outcomes and to assist the attainment of performance targets for all service agencies along whole patient pathways. It can help to test new policies and to eliminate those which might have unintended consequences for the system as a whole. It also creates learning and communication for new-world ideas and insights.

Systems thinking teaches that there are two types of complexity: the detailed complexity and the dynamic complexity. The Fifth discipline primarily deals with the latter, the dynamic one.

Oriental scents

The festive winter season is perfect for the oriental scents that are most of the times heavy and more suitable for evening and night rather than work. A large fragrance class, featuring the scents of vanilla and animal scents together with flowers and wood. Frequently enhanced by camphorous oils and incense resins.
Shalimar (Guerlain 1925) is the state of the art among oriental perfumes and the only one in the world's top five which is not a floral scent. Shalimar means "Temple of love" and alludes to Taj Mahal in India.
Notes de tête: Citron, Bergamote
Notes de coeur: Jasmin, Rose de Mai, Opopanax, Fève Tonka, Vanille
Notes de fond: Iris, Encens
Angel (Thierry Mugler 1992) is warm, sweet and spicy, caring. It reminds me of a old friend of mines and times we spent together in the mid-nineties. The list of ingredients reminds of an ice cream parlor... Unzipped (Samba 1998) reminds of this perfume, with the base note of chocolate.
Notes de tête: Bergamote, Mandarine
Notes de coeur: Fruit de la passion, Pêche, Abricot
Notes de fond: Patchouli, Vanille, Chocolat, Caramel
Samsara (Guerlain 1989) is a floral-oriental scent that gains over time, I think, and is less heavy than the above, ladylike.
Notes de tête: Bergamote, Citron, Note Verte, Estragon
Notes de coeur: Jasmin, Rose, Ylang-Ylang, Oeillet
Notes de fond: Santal, Vanille, Benjoin, Fève Tonka

Sensi et Relaxing Fragance

Hier j'ai testé Sensi d'Armani et Relaxing Fragance de Shiseido.

Les deux sont legers, surtout Relaxing Fragance , qui est très "clean", je me demande si ce n'est pas trop de genre savon....mais le long de la journée il tient bien.
Notes de tête: Concombre, Bambou, Armoise, Galbanum
Notes de coeur: Rose, Cardamome, Pivoine, Gardenia
Notes de fond: Santal, Bois de Cèdre, Mousse de Chêne, Fève Tonka
Quant à Sensi, je l'aime bien pour une journée où on a envie de qch

de paisible.
Notes de tête: Kaffir lime, Accacia farnèse
Notes de coeur: Jasmin, orgeat
Notes de fond: Palissandre, benjoin