Interpretation of the Proust Phenomenon

          "When from a long distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."

                         --Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time : Swann's Way

          Psychology and literature has a long history of illustrating how odors are extraordinarily vigorous reminders of autobiographical experience, an effect which has become known as the Proust phenomenon. The ability of, for example, a madeleine to evoke seemingly forgotten memories of childhood has interested psychologists, poets and authors alike for generations. The general consensus is that the hippocampus, located in the temporal lobe as the consolidator of short term and long term memory sends axons to the main olfactory bulb and therefore provides a connection between smell and memory which other senses lack. Rushdie continues this tradition in Midnight's Children as embodied in the Aziz/Sinai family's most prevalent trait, the "proboscissmus" or the "cyranose" (8)

          The initial source of action which takes place in the novel involves Aadam Aziz hitting his nose "against a frost hardened tussock of earth while attempting to pray." (4) This propels the story into motion as it symbolizes an awakening of sorts to Aadam. He is quickly thereafter indoctrinated by Tai regarding the "great gift" he possesses with his nose, as "it's the place where the outside world meets the inside you."(13) He is further advised to follow the cues provided by his nose (e.g. in the form of itching) and consequently, the precedent is set for the importance this nose will subsequently play in the text.

          Rushdie takes this olfactory importance further by adding an element of the fantastic to his version of the Proust phenomenon. More than recollecting one's own biography through olfaction, he posits that Saleem is able to recall his generational history through the power of his great gift. The idea here is that just as genetics determines the cosmetic makeup of the individual, allowing for physical traits to be passed down from (grand)father to (grand)son, so too can familial memories be passed. Saleem exemplifies this by describing "the sharp stink of {his} grandmother's curiosity and strength" (54) The suggestion that concepts such as strength and curiosity have scents and moreover that their scents are putrid is a ludicrous claim prima facie. However, by considering Saleem's gift as allowing him to recall the situations in which Naseem's stalwart insolence created friction within the Aziz family and a general air of malcontent, it is clearer to see why his grandmother's "strength" would sharply stink. Although it may be argued that this simply a literary flourish, another example provides edification; Saleem describes "using my nose (because although it has lost the powers which enabled it, so recently, to make history, it has required other compensatory gifts)--turning it inwards, I've been sniffing out the atmosphere in my grandfather's house." (54) This suggests that Saleem is able to use his sense of smell to recall long term memories beyond that of his earliest childhood. Specifically, this passage intimates that Aadam has passed down to Saleem a hippocampus indented with memories of his own experience.  Rather than stating that his grandfather told him stories of massacre and mercurochrome, or that he has read as much in journals or newspapers, Saleem defers to his sense of smell as the authority which bolsters him to tell this tale.

          Rushdie's mixture of fact and fantasy seems all but assured to subsist throughout the narrative and further promulgate the "folklore" of the Proust phenomenon.