In one of the two parallel plot-lines here, Robbins juggles the separate attempts of various parfumiers around the world to come up with a perfume (upon a jasmine base) that will outenchant any previous concoction: Madame Devalier in New Orleans is feverishly experimenting so is her adopted daughter Priscilla in Seattle and the megs-company LeFever is also hard at work in Paris. The unenlightened might take a beet for granted, or view it as too common to be special.A round-Robbins on the themes of scent, so-called "floral consciousness," and immortality-skipping through time and space, but offering a little old-fashioned storytelling charm along with the usual cute/hip doodling. They all have inchoate desires to temper the feminine and overpowering jasmine in their perfumes, desires that could be fulfilled if only they looked to the humble beets surrounding them. Whatever its qualities, they are easily overlooked most of the other characters, and especially the women, have beets delivered to them night and day and show barely any curiosity about them.
Meanwhile, the narrator keys it to creative practice. For instance, Alobar ascribes a warrior aspect to the vegetable and is dismayed at seeing it used as a mere dye ingredient. To everyone else in the novel, the beet is misused or ignored, its mysteries locked away.
The beet’s virtues are extolled by exactly three voices in the narrative: Alobar, Wiggs Dannyboy, and the narrator (whom we might assume to be Tom Robbins himself). The beet crops up throughout the narrative as a vegetable of mystery, endowed with incredible powers while maintaining a humble exterior.
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