#tanais

[the-lunar-library]

TO THE RAVENS

All of the character portraits together -- all of the major-ish characters. I'm really pleased with how this series came out, and it's so nice seeing them all collected like this.

Akantha / Alexandros / Genesius

Kokkonas / Tanais / Buca

Brixia / Karyai / Pas

Lykedon / Galana

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

In Sensorium: Notes for My People- Tanais

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Fragrance has long been used to mark who is civilized and who is barbaric, who is pure and who is polluted, who is free and who is damned.” - Tanais

After listening to just a chapter of this entrancing memoir-meets-cultural history of perfume and scent, I knew I needed a hard copy. Tanais is one of those few authors who reminded me of that Vashti Bunyan song “I’d Like to Walk Around in Your Mind” - not in a creepy way, more of an “I love how this person thinks and wanna discuss a million things with them” way!

In Sensorium is in part a love letter to Tanais’ Bangladeshi heritage, presenting their personal journey in the greater context of the horrors of the caste system, the Partition, and the gut-wrenching violence exacted on women & femmes therein. They follow the through line of perfume and scent - the roles played by colonization, class, and climate; and how the drive to create beauty for its own sake knows no bounds.

Creating beauty comes naturally to Tanais, a self-taught perfumer. After reading this book I had to check out their creations - I am after all the kid who collected perfume samples. Luckily Tanais sells tiny rollerballs of their scents for $8 so I could not only afford them, I could afford several! My favorites were:

Nymphea - an aquatic white floral of lotus and lily with the comforting warmth of sandalwood.

Matí - a tribute to little tablets of Ganges river clay eaten by expectant mothers in Bangladesh. This complex, earthy rose evokes coziness with its notes of cocoa and Ganges clay. These scents are both truly addictive.

I also bought the Heart Chakra lipstick, which looks green in the tube but turns a brilliant berry on me, fading to a popsicle stain (see below).

If you have an interest in memoirs by queer brown femmes, Bangladesh, perfume, or just love lyrical prose, you will be grateful for the journey.

[romegreeceart]

Dancer with a tympanon (hand drum)

* 4th century BCE

* Tanais

* Berlin State Museums

https://smb.museum-digital.de/object/12971

Source: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Creator Johannes Laurentius Copyright Notice CC BY-NC-SA

[the-lunar-library]

TO THE RAVENS

Tanais, Akantha's mother and a skilled midwife. She lives her life in careful devotion to the gods, as if by some mathematical equation, her piety and obedience will keep her and her loved ones in the gods' favor. But she's perceptive enough to realize that doesn't work, and she copes by telling herself humans are helpless before the gods, and the best she can do is accept their trials. She lives in fear for Akantha's well-being – especially when Akantha has the recklessness to blaspheme against the gods themselves.

Tanais (original name Eusebia, “pious”, extremely on the nose) was at first a much more negative and narrow character. Akantha was always intended to be a rebel, and her mother embodied everything she wanted to resist – family expectations, cultural boundaries, and most of all religious strictures. That tension is still there in the novel, but Eusebia was going to be an anxious, constricting presence, full of warnings and outright anger against her defiant daughter.

But time went on and Eusebia started to change, grow more sympathetic. I started to dig into her backstory. And (I know I keep saying this, but it's still true) I did research into the lives of women in Greek culture, women under Roman rule. And there's so much we don't know about them, but one thing we do know in fair detail – because men were interested in it and thus wrote about it – is midwifery. Not all of their medical know-how holds up today, but midwifery was a profession where women displayed skill, intelligence, and authority. And unlike in the stateroom or in the temples or just in marriage, period, this was a place where their power wasn't seen as threatening to men. They were allowed to flourish; even enslaved midwives were seen as notably valuable, which sounds dark (because it is), but it still represents stature, importance.

So while Tanais (she stopped being Eusebia) in many ways chains herself to convention, largely out of fear and uncertainty, she has a means of supporting herself, of dealing with men on a somewhat more equal level, and of helping other women. She wouldn't see herself as a champion of women, as Kokkonas does, and many of the things Akantha does appall her. Some people like to smugly interpret that “Well behaved women rarely make history” line, as if the only value in a woman's life comes from defying norms. Tanais doesn't defy norms, she doesn't make history, but she really does help people.

And her having that role might be why her character ended up softening, becoming more sympathetic to the reader. She and Akantha still are in conflict, Akantha's still angry with her at times, Tanais still does things that might shock the reader, but hopefully there's a stronger bond of sympathy between her and her daughter. Hopefully the reader gets an understanding of why Tanais is the way she is, the sort of pressures she's faced. If Kokkonas has partially defied convention, Tanais has protected herself within it. I'm sure the reader won't agree with all of her decisions, but hopefully they can understand her.

Tanais is Akantha's mom and Karyai's stepmom; there's some resemblance with her daughter, but Karyai and Akantha more closely resemble their shared father. As for her name, during my pre-writing, I spent a fair bit of time flipping through my Latin dictionary, looking for interesting words and potential names, and that's where I found Tanais. (Which is a Greek name, but you find lots of Greek names and terms in Latin.) I really liked the sound of it, much more than Eusebia. Tanais is an ancient name for the Don river. Which, I agree, isn't the most logical choice for a woman who lives on the Moon. But I thought about it, and I don't think it's that unusual for people to name their kids after places they've not only never been, but never have any expectation of seeing. It's not like we don't give our kids names that relate to the Moon, like Luna and Selena. And, being so much larger, planet Earth would loom in the lunar sky pretty inescapably. So let's just say there's a custom among lunar peoples to name their children after things from Earth.

[gjgoblin]

[gjgoblin]

[gjgoblin]

[behindtheoder]

Russia / Tanais / Ancient Greek archaeological site