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Jitterbug Perfume is Tom Robbins' fourth novel, published in 1984. The major themes of the book include the striving for immortality, the meaning behind the sense of smell, individual expression, self-reliance, sex, love, and religion. Beets and the god Pan figure prominently. The novel is a self-described epic, with four distinct storylines, one set in 8th century Bohemia and three others in modern day New Orleans, Seattle, and Paris.

Plot summary

A powerful and righteous 8th century king named Alobar narrowly escapes regicide at the hands of his own subjects, as it is their custom to kill the king at the first sight of aging. After fleeing, no longer a king but a simple peasant, he travels through Eurasia, and eventually meets the goat-god Pan, who is slowly losing his powers as the world turns toward Christianity. In India, he bumps into the child incarnation of his former wife, Wren. The girl, Kudra, goes on to become his wife. As with most of Robbins' couples, their mutual libido is enormous, and their love quite like something out of a fairy tale.

After an encounter with a mysterious group known as "The Bandaloop Doctors" Alobar is set down the path towards eternal life (which, according to Robbins, can be attained by a consistent ritual of controlled breath work, sex and bathing). Alobar and Kudra, successful in their immortality, prance about Europe until the 18th century, when they attempt a sort of new transcendental meditation and become separated into different astral planes.

Meanwhile, in present-day, a "genius waitress" named Priscilla struggles with a difficult job in a low-end Mexican restaurant. Priscilla is an amateur perfumer, and is slowly going crazy trying to locate a base note for her new fragrance, something she believes will be almost magical, a fragrance she discovered in the gift of a thousand-year-old bottle. While dealing with this, she also juggles the unwanted advances of a lesbian co-worker, a brief affair with an eccentric millionaire obsessed with life extension, and a mysterious stranger who keeps delivering beets to her apartment.

In New Orleans, Priscilla's stepmother, the Madame Devalier, is a successful perfumer, and is also working on a fragrance of her own, intent on taking on the big companies of Paris. She also seeks something magical — the ultra-fragrant jasmine from a mysterious man with the helmet of swarming bees, Bingo Pajama.

In Paris, the LeFever Parfumaire is concerned about their eccentric leader, Marcel, who equates smell as the most important factor in the forward movement of the evolutionary process. After witnessing an eclipse, he is obsessed with his own scent.

The story lines eventually converge into a climax in New Orleans, with a brief stop in another dimension. The main message is summarized in the cryptic Erleichda, loosely translated as "lighten up".

Trivia

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*In the somewhat esoteric final lines of the book, note this: "And then you'll be blue. Bluer than indigo." This is based on an old Chinese proverb by Xun Zi:^{[citation needed]} blue dye is made from indigo colored grass, yet the blue dye's color is much deeper than the color of its origin. In other words, the pupil can exceed the master.

There currently is a restaurant in Kennebunkport, ME, called "Bandaloop" and themed after the book.

A similar restaurant existed in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore from 1988 to 2003. Menu items were named for characters and events in the book. It was notable for suspending from the ceiling, fully-decorated upside-down Christmas tree during the Holiday Season.

External links

• The Aftrlife: A Tom Robbins Playground
• Bandaloop Restaurant

Release details

• Hardcover – ISBN 0-553-05068-0, published in 1984 by Bantam Books