Review: Noodler's Ahab

This is not a review of the Noodler’s Ahab flex-nib fountain pen. There are plenty of those already available on the internet, for the curious. Rather, it is a review of the smell of the Noodler’s Ahab flex-nib fountain pen. I’ve rarely seen an online comment about this pen that didn’t mention its odor; almost everyone agrees that it smells bad. But I haven’t seen a single attempted description of the odor.

I bought an Ahab primarily in order to smell it. I just had to know. I have now smelled it, and yes, the smell is unpleasant. I am not bothered by it as much as some people, but it certainly is distracting. I am writing this review with a different pen, while the Ahab lies safely across the room.

The reek of the Ahab isn’t fecal—so that’s good news. It does remind me of a disposable diaper, though. Not a soiled one, a fresh one. If you bought a package of disposable diapers from the dollar store, and accidentally spilled a bottle of leather treatment oil on them, the resulting odor might resemble the Ahab’s. At first the Ahab’s smell reminded me of cheese, but I couldn’t think of any cheese it smells like. It smells like some theoretical, even virtual cheese. If you could modify a laser printer to output cheese, that cheese would smell like this. If a tin of cat food were a living thing, and it died, its ghost might smell similar to the Ahab.

The Ahab smells like a radio manufactured in the nineteen-seventies that is about to, but has not quite yet, burst into flames. It smells like dog shoes the dog refused to wear that have since fallen into a box of moth flakes. It smells like a copyright-violating bootleg action figure lying at the bottom of last year’s school backpack. It smells like a roll of orthodontist’s x-ray film shoved into the back of a drawer full of old lollipops. It smells like the inside of a skateboard helmet just removed from the head of a child who earlier the same day swam in a heavily algal lake or stream. It smells like expired antidepressants. It smells like a pile of slightly moldy megachurch hymnals. It smells like a sterile bandage designed exclusively for use on eels. It smells like a nursing home on a fishing boat.

But don’t take my word for it.

One and a half stars.

★ ½