One of my all time favorite novels! I kept re-reading this book to a point that I lose count. It's a shockingly elegant, frightening, rich and masterfully crafted story about the 19th century Paris and a murderer with a highly unusual talent.

edited@01/12/2021:

I watched n  Parfumn, the rewritten version/adaptation of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer! And I find it to be very delightful and creative!

I feel strangely about this book because it's hard for me to enjoy a narrative that centers such an abhorrent, disgusting character. And for the most part, I had no interest in Grenouille's journey nor any other part of the plot. But the writing - oh, the writing. I love reading perfume reviews in my spare time and I love the art of smelling. And because of Suskind's truly delicious descriptions of all the scents that Grenouille's talented nose could pick out, I have to give this a solid 4/5.

I'm not even sure I want to review this. I can honestly say that I hate this book. I freaking hate this book. And I never say stuff like that. This was the worst, most disturbing thing I have ever read and the only thing I want to do now is get rid of this it and never see it, or even think about it again.
Can someone please tell me what the hell is so great about this?

قرأتها و شاهدتها فيلما ..

كاتب متميز فكر خارج الصندوق و أنتج فكرة عجيبه لا أدري من أي مكان جاء بها من تلك الوديان البعيده التي يأتي للشعراء و الكتاب جميعا منها الإلهام ..

A master piece ..

لطالما احببت الأعمال الفنية اللتي تترك في فمك مذاقا ما ..
التي لا تعود الحياة بعدها كما كانت , منها العطر ..

رأيت أثناء قرائتي البطل طفلا يشم كل شئ في جشع
أشفقت عليه طفلا بالرغم من نفور جميع من حوله منه..
و هو يقوم بخلط العطور بدون قواعد .. رأيته و هو يري الفتاه قتيلته الأولي في منامه .. يتذكر شذاها , يحاول الإمساك به الإحتفاظ به للأبد و من ثم يراه كالزئبق ينسل من بين يديه ... فيصرخ
و يستيقظ

رأيت ذلك الجنون في عينيه و هو يستخلص مكونات سحره , العطر ..

انتهيت من قرائتها و من ثم شاهدتها فيلما , كان أفضل مما توقعت من الأفلام ألا تكون بمستوي الروايات دوما ..

النهايه رائعه ..

عمل لن أمل من إعادة قرائته , و رؤيته علي الشاشه ..



العطر ..
أنصح بها بشدة , علي مسئوليتي الشخصية :))

This perfume stinks. Hahaha I'm so witty.

2nd time around: Still eerie, deeply disturbing but a beautiful surreal experience! Grenouille is still one of the most fascinating characters I have ever encountered

PHENOMENAL!!!!!!!!!!!!! I f$@£! loved it




“He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.” 




18th Century France, Grenouille is a man who has no human scent or body odor but is gifted with a very sharp sense of smell. He has the gift of recognizing and creating smells that would appeal to other people. He works as an apprentice perfumer and journeyed to explore all available human scents in Paris. He wanted to have a scent of his own. A scent that would give him the body odor that every person has that he did not have. It was his desire to be one of them that he makes concoctions of various perfumes to find a human scent that would make him smell like everyone else.



I think my head has stopped spinning enough for me to say why this book is absolutely phenomenal. The book follows the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (a f*cking name and a half) born in the late 1700s Paris in a very dark period where sanitation facilities and pollution were not at the best state.



(Fair warning foul descriptions at every page)


With a remarkable gift of super scent and being odorless is the only thing that is going for him. This gift comes at a huge cost as it drives him to sort out the perfect perfume and it will come at a cost of someone else's life.


“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.” 


Words I would use to describe my experience reading this book "Intoxicating Complex" For such a short book it really had a depth of a thousand pages. The character study was one of the strong points of the book, using scent as a perspective to explore power, obsession, perfection and so much more was just mind-blowing. The idea of how lonely perfection can be was an interesting POV, how as humans we desperately try to fill that emptiness but in the end, it just grows wider disintegrates till we àre left as empty vessels. As I was following this person slowly evolving into this monster I found myself feeling sympathetic towards him because that feeling of emptiness was what was driving him to commit these atrocities. His view of the world was just so dark and depressing leading him to become so introverted and isolated with no idea of what is good or bad.



*Don't go into this book expecting a fast paced thriller*






“He possessed the power. He held it in his hand. A power stronger than the power of money or the power of terror or the power of death: the invincible power to command the love of mankind. There was only one thing that power could not do: it could not make him able to smell himself.” 




.

The writing was where it got really juicy, I honestly thought this book was published in the early 1900s because of the slow descriptive atmospheric prose but it was actually translated in 1990s and the translator did an incredible job. The Gothic setting was just everything and this wasn't the conventional "murder mystery" it was a slow build up that really engulfed me placiñg me dead center into the time period.  Totally caught by surprise with a scent driven book and I will be haunted by it for a long time, I can't wait to reread this modern classic again

reading vlog: https://youtu.be/EbcWXp-a50M

weird FUCKED UP and i loved it!! 3rd quarter got a lil boring but loved the atmosphere of the first half and the craziness of the ending

For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they could not escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath.

This book stinks.

Perfume is the epitome of sensory overload. Decadently sensual. Profusely sensuous. All in the name of the olfactory organ.

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille’s ponderous existence is closer to that of a non-human animal where every choice is dictated by scent. The world is read through the nose rather than the eye. The mind becomes a library of whiffs, and the hand a tool…for murder, in this case.

A bleak comedy. A satirical deconstruction of the human race. A lesson in amorality. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a pleasure.

Releer un libro vale la pena.

Hay dos tipos de lectores: Quienes no repiten un libro, porque afirman que tienen una vida muy corta; y quienes les gusta repetir sus libros favoritos para volver a disfrutarlos y hallar más conclusiones. Yo soy parte del segundo grupo. El Perfume, es un libro muy especial para mí. Hace varios años mi hermana pidió prestado este libro en la biblioteca; ella no lo leyó, pero tras verme sin nada que hacer me lo ofreció para que me entretuviera. Siempre me ha gustado leer, pero honestamente en ese tiempo no estaba tan interesado en este mundo de libros como actualmente. Sin embargo, en ese momento tomé este libro, lo leí y me fascino completamente. Fue un libro que me motivo a interesarme seriamente por este lindo pasatiempo. Pasaron los años y hace unos meses una idea invadió mi mente: Dudaba si este libro era tan bueno como lo recordaba o simplemente había sido inexperiencia por no haber leído mucho. Para resolver esta duda entonces decidí releerlo; aunque no les miento, tenía miedo de descubrir que no fuera tan bueno como me pareció la primera vez. Pero esos miedos ya quedaron atrás, efectivamente el libro es espectacular y me gustó de inicio a fin; de hecho creo que disfruté más la relectura.

¿Qué es lo que más me gustó? Sin ninguna duda su personaje principal: Jean Baptiste Grenouille. Grenouille es un ser que no emana olor de su cuerpo por lo que le produce asco a todas las personas que lo conocen. Sin embargo, tiene una habilidad extraordinaria: Su desarrollado sentido del olfato. Su vida gira en torno a los olores. Es el protagonista y el villano a la vez. Odiado por muchos lectores por su comportamiento enfermo y por ser un asesino; para mí, es un genio en todo el sentido de la palabra porque hace lo que ningún otro ser podrá hacer: Usar sus habilidades para crear los mejores perfumes, mezclar olores de una manera magnífica y extraer el olor de cualquier ser vivo u objeto. Pero eso no es todo, incluso es capaz de crear perfumes que provocan emociones en los demás, como la compasión o el amor. La frase más popular del libro, justamente es la que mejor refleja las habilidades de Grenouille:

"Quien dominaba los olores, dominaba el corazón de los hombres" —Jean-Baptiste Grenouille.

Es un personaje tan especial y poderoso que ni siquiera las enfermedades más peligrosas lo vencieron. Sí, es un personaje perverso, pero en esta historia no hay ningún personaje bueno. Todos son avaros, codiciosos, manipuladores, envidiosos y sin una pizca de compasión o amor; por lo que ser malo es algo de lo más de normal en esta historia. Grenouille odiaba a los humanos, pero creo que si cualquier persona tuviera sus habilidades también terminaría haciéndolo, ya que soportar olores desagradables por todas partes sería insoportable. Ya para terminar de hablar de este personaje quiero destacar ese aislamiento que tuvo por siete años. Hacer eso por mucho tiempo es demasiado peligroso, ya que puede trastornar seriamente la mente de cualquier humano; desde odiar profundamente, hasta incluso olvidar a expresarnos.

En cuanto a la temática de la historia me parece muy original. Es una perspectiva completamente diferente ver el mundo enfatizándonos en los olores, que me deja una pregunta para reflexionar: ¿Cuál es realmente el poder de los olores?

En cuanto a lo negativo mencionaré tres detalles: El primero, que aunque no hay un capítulo que sobre o falte en el libro, quizás pudo ser más largo en caso de contar más detalles de cada asesinato, o al menos de los más importantes. Lo segundo, es que me hubiera gustado que Grenouille tuviera un contrincante de verdad; alguien que le obstaculizará el camino e hiciera que no todo fuera tan fácil para él, alguien que no sucumbiera ante sus habilidades, alguien como Madame Gaillard quien no tenía sentido del olfato. Lo tercero, es con referencia al final. No haré spoilers, pero sí diré que me parece un final macabro, aunque extraño. Es lógico, tras ver el comportamiento de Grenouille, pero pareciera como si el autor al final no hubiera sabido como finalizar la historia.

El Perfume es un libro recomendado que disfrutarán de inicio a fin. Libro excelente.

this book sounded really interesting, but i really didn't like it. couldn't wait to be done with it, but also had a hard time just finishing it cause i really didn't like it. felt like the writing and plot was just very amateurish. hopefully the movie is better.

This is it. This is the worst book I've ever read. It has unseated On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

------

What in the fresh hell was this.

Okay so I have thoughts. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is about this guy, Jean-Baptiste who is basically a scent savant and psycho. All he cares about is smell and he hates people. He is the best perfumer ever and can smell anything. He can control people with smell! He soon finds that the most amazing, best smell of all is... you guessed it... the smell of virgin women. (sigh. eye roll.) The only way to capture and keep that smell is by murdering them and basically distilling them into scent. Wild times. Chaos ensues.

This book is certainly unique. There is a huge emphasis on scent (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and the perfume making process. Suskind goes into great detail of perfumery, which is sometimes interesting and other times a bit much. The whole book revolves around how Jean-Baptiste sees the world: in the form of scent. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of heart to it.

The writing style is very distant which does contribute to some of the horror element, however I can't say it did anything beyond that. Reading about Jean-Baptiste's heinous actions in a detached way can definitely contribute to the creepiness of the book, but it also just wasn't engrossing. All of the crazy stuff only happens in the last 20% of the book. I must also say I'm not a fan of horror, so horror for horror's sake may be others' cup of tea, but I'm not a big fan of it.

I just didn't get the point. I love reading about villains but I like them more from the perspective of a character study. Everything in this book felt one-dimensional and flat. Jean-Baptiste's motivations aren't compelling and he's just a pathetic guy, and I just didn't care about his story. Until the last 20%, the book slowly plods along. Jean Baptiste is never met with any true conflict and anything he sets out to do he achieves. There was nothing about him that I liked or interested me. Which, maybe some would enjoy with how cray he is, but for me I need something aside from "see how crazy this person can be." I think a big issue for me is that Jean Baptiste and his evilness is not grounded in any sense of reality so there wasn't anything I could get at. I generally love villains, but in those books the villain is succumbing to the pitfalls of ego/fame, obsessive love, beauty, abuse, etc. etc. None of that applies here.

How Suskind used and described virgins in this book was not my fave. Of course female virgins are the zenith of scent, and they smell different from their "deflowered" counterparts. "Budding breasts" were described in detail along with their pre-pubescent qualities and it's just... not my fave. Yeah I get that JB is supposed to be awful, but why do all these male authors have to fall into this obnoxious thing that's been done hundreds of times before. It's like when a male author wants to make a villain, they just make the victims the "pure and special" young beautiful virgins. It's old. It's tired. I then couldn't understand or care about any of the goals or desires of our main character. I didn't understand why our main character cared so much as he has no reason to care about the smell of virgins, and his character doesn't fit into that. You have to really buy that the smell of virgins is so amazing + pure, to which I'm just like... ??? I found it all tired and uninteresting.

I've read plenty of books with heinous, villainous characters, and I enjoyed them because they were compelling and I wanted to learn more about their twisted motivations. With Perfume, I just didn't care about anything or anyone. I also want to add that I'm not big on the horror genre (in particular, I don't like body horror) and sometimes things that happen in horror books/movies can bother me a bit. (I felt this when I read Crimson Kiss or watched The Exorcist.) I understand that this is a "me" problem, and others like the shocking aspects of horror, so take this with a grain of salt.

The ending was very crazy and shocking and full of wtaf moments. Which, I guess congrats to Patrick Suskind because the shock value was there. But it came off as just that- shock value with no real meaning or substance. I think this may also be why I'm generally not a horror fan. Perhaps that's what's to be expected? Shocking, OTT things happen all the time with horror so I'm sure many can appreciate it, but for me that just doesn't work. The ending was just gross and could be hilarious with how outlandish it was. I hate shock for the sake of shock so I was not liking it, but I guess it was what Suskind intended.

I came away from this book getting nothing from it. And I've liked other horror/gothic books I've read (Wuthering Heights, Mexican Gothic, The Picture of Dorian Gray, A Ladder to the Sky) that feature crazy evil people. This is not what I want from my books and frankly I come away from this with a vague distaste in my mouth. Which could be the point, because horror, but I still believe even with horror you should get something out of the book outside of shock. Or I'm not the ideal target for this book. Who knows.

The premise is certainly unique. But it went more and more downhill as I kept reading, to the point where I can say I hated it. However your mileage may vary.

What begins with one of the most alluring opening lines soon spirals into a gorgeously twisted tale of death and strangeness, written and translated with staggering beauty. Perfume tells the tale of the 18th century French orphan Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who slipped from his mother while she worked at a fish market and then promptly died. And while his beginnings are bleak, he soon grows into an unusual kind of monster.

Grenouille has the uncanny ability to identify smells from miles away. His nose is unnaturally attuned, and he will eventually kill for the smells he desires most. We watch him grow up, become apprentice to a perfumer in Paris, and eventually leave when he grows tired of other people. But the smells of certain women drive him to commit terrible crimes in this blend of historical fiction and poetic fantasy.

Perfume is a grotesque novel about the intersection between death and obsession, as well as the corruption of power and dominance. An unsavoury yet addictive work that proves to be an entirely compulsive read.

My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/best-historic...