Jitterbug Perfume

In Jitterbug Perfume, published in 1985, Tom Robbins combines realism with fantasy and comedy to tell his tale of intertwined lives across centuries. His works have reputations as cult classics that tweak conventional notions of the novel while seeking to reinforce new conventions of their own. The story spans both centuries of time and nearly the entirety of the globe. Other works by Robbins include Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and Still Life with Woodpecker.

Plot Summary

The novel quickly introduces the main characters. Priscilla Partido, a quick-witted waitress, lives in Seattle. Lily Devalier runs a small parfumerie in New Orleans with the assistance of V’lu. Claude and Marcel, members of the famous LeFever family, run a perfume corporation in Paris. They all receive anonymous deliveries of beets. Though the book opens on these modern-day characters’ lives, they take second stage in Parts 1 through 3 and return to the narrative’s forefront in Part 4.

A thousand years in the past, King Alobar, the ruler of a small, proto-Bohemian kingdom, discovers signs that he is aging. It is customary to kill and replace the king at the first sign of decline, so Alobar attempts to hide the evidence. This attempt fails, and he escapes with one of the members of his harem, settling down in a distant village. After a year, however, another set of arbitrary norms threaten to cut his life short. Alobar decides that he would prefer never to die. With the advice of a shaman, he sets off for the country of the Bandaloop because, he is told, they have discovered the secrets of immortality.

In his travels East, Alobar meets the Greek god Pan and an eight-year-old Hindu girl named Kudra. Both Pan and Kudra are familiar with death and express a desire for some alternative to it. Alobar meets the Bandaloop in the Himalayan mountains but does not find them immediately helpful. He settles in a nearby monastery for 20 years, during which time he barely ages a day. Kudra, now a woman, appears in the monastery and convinces Alobar to give the wise men one more try. They find the Bandaloop caves empty and settle into them. Seven years of study within the caves reveals to them the secrets of immortality, which has to do with the elements of fire, air, water, and earth. After their studies, the couple go on many adventures and live many lives over the course of centuries.

In the year 1666, in the city of Paris, Alobar and Kudra begin to have doubts. The Age of Reason has taken its toll on Pan and his nymphs, and Alobar and Kudra do what they can to care for the now-invisible god. They decide to go to America, where they assume they will have more freedom to be themselves. To hide the god’s supernatural stench for the passage across the Atlantic, they attempt to create a perfume. Failing that, they decide to magically teleport themselves and Pan to America. Unfortunately, Kudra disappears from the material plane in the attempt, leaving Alobar behind. Desperate, Alobar creates a perfume called K23 using trace amounts of beet pollen extract; he travels with Pan to the New World in hopes of meeting Kudra there. On the way, an indignant Pan throws the remaining K23 overboard. The bottle eventually winds up in New Orleans in the 20th century, in the hands of Lily Devalier, caretaker and employer to both V’lu and Priscilla Partido.

In Seattle, Priscilla Partido, in stolen possession of the bottle, lives and works as a waitress. She conducts experiments trying to recreate K23 in her spare time. She meets Wiggs Dannyboy, known popularly as a con artist and as the founder of the Last Laugh Foundation, an organization dedicated to reversing the aging process. The two begin a whirlwind affair, during which time Wiggs informs Priscilla that he met Alobar in a Massachusetts prison, learned all of his secrets, and has been sending beets to notable perfumers in order to help progress their work.

V’lu travels to Seattle and steals the bottle back from Priscilla. Priscilla, now aware of the bottle’s value, travels back to New Orleans to reclaim it. Alobar is released from prison. After months of delay, all the main characters meet in New Orleans during Mardi Gras in a culmination orchestrated by Wiggs Dannyboy. Alobar reveals the secret recipe for K23, and all the main characters receive advances from the LeFever corporation against K23’s projected profits. Alobar warns everyone that the modern world, and particularly its devotion to reason, will prove increasingly antithetical to living a good life. In Paris, Kudra rematerializes with a message that’s been repeated throughout the narrative: “Lighten up!”