An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind’s classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder. In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors … the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.
Translated from the German by John E. Woods.
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I bought this novel after seeing the movie that was based on it. The movie was quite striking so I expected this novel to be just as atmospheric and striking. Alas. The tone of this book reminded me a lot of a Grimm fairy tale or a fable. What I really liked about this novel was the author’s focus on a human sense that isn’t the main focus in literature, i.e. the sense of smell. Usually writers focus on the senses of sight and hearing. As a writer, I know how difficult it is to describe smells except through a character’s response to them. Suskind does a fabulous job of describing scents and odors in a way that really conjured them up for me and made reading this book more enjoyable than expected.
The main character, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, is not one I’ll forget anytime soon, also. He’s not that likeable, but still fascinating in his single-minded quest for a scent that would be truly his, i.e. his odor because he has none. Humans exude all kinds of odors and I’d never considered that each individual’s odor would be unique to him or her, but that’s the crux of this book. Grenouille wants to smell! He is so discerning because his sense of smell, his nose, is highly sensitive which makes him the perfect perfumer. It was fascinating to learn just what goes into creating essences for perfumes, and then how perfumes are made. I love perfumes, and Grenouille’s obsession and talents in creating perfumes so powerful that they change lives really grabbed me. The time period of this story, the mid-18th century, is also not one we see often in serial killer books.
Grenouille is a serial killer, but is presented in a way that makes him no different from someone who kills fish for food or for other products from them, which is probably the most disturbing aspect of this story. Grenouille has no conscience, although he understands that killing is wrong. But in his mind, he operates on a different plane from regular humans. We are also given hints throughout the story about how he thinks and feels about other people. When I finished this book today, I realized that Suskind had written an extraordinary portrait of a psychopath without sensationalizing him, and actually providing the story with an unusual finale. I had not recalled the ending of the movie so the ending came as a surprise to me.
Suskind’s prose was smooth, easy to read, clear, and precise. He shifted point of view smoothly between an omniscient narrator to Grenouille’s. It is the biography of Grenouille and follows a more or less chronological narrative structure. The characters important to Grenouille, such as Baldini, are developed with care, but otherwise, this is Grenouille’s book and Suskind focuses most of his attention on this character, his thoughts, emotions, and behavior.
I’d recommend this novel to readers of literary fiction, psychological suspense stories, literary thrillers and mysteries. It is a totally character-driven story, and while a fast read, demands attention from the reader. I am glad that I read this book finally.