The Book of Lost Things

Connolly uses scent descriptions to immerse the reader in the forest world alongside David. He describes the many smells David encounters to create a tone of foreboding and highlight the evil that dominates that world. For example, David smells animals and a burning smell during his waking dreams. This sensory imagery acts as foreshadowing for the burning airplane and decapitated Loup he encounters when he enters the forest world. The smell of blood and decay in the air grows strongest just before he discovers the decapitated Loup. The descriptions of smells in David’s waking dreams and his initial entrance into Elsewhere show the reader that this world is dangerous and full of evil.

Connolly’s use of smells also reinforces the theme that death is a reality that David must face. When David and Roland encounter the corpses of soldiers slain by the Beast, the smell of blood and decomposition is strong. Similarly, when they approach the Fortress of Thorns, the air has a musty smell, “like the interior of a crypt” (235), and inside the fortress, the courtyard smells of death and decay, reflecting the many dead bodies that lie on the ground decomposing.