Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

A cross between The Silence of the Lambs and a period drama. That's how I would describe Perfume, the great German classic of the 1980s. Basically, it's an eighteenth-century murder story, except that it doesn't focus on the victims and the hunt for the killer, but rather emphasises the life and times of the murderer, who is an unusual protagonist to say the least.

Perfume tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an eighteenth-century Parisian with a unique gift: a prodigiously well-developed olfactory sense which allows him to recognise pretty much any scent or smell. After a childhood full of hardship, he is apprenticed to a perfumier who teaches him all he knows about distilling smells. Unbeknownst to the perfumier, however, Grenouille isn't in it for the fashionable perfumes. Rather than extracting scents from flowers and petals, he wishes to extract smells from living objects -- more specifically, from the beautiful virgins he comes across every now and then, who smell like heaven to him. And so he plies his trade, hoping to learn that elusive trick which will enable him to trap the scents of the lovely young ladies he covets from afar, so that he can create the perfume he really wants -- essence of maiden.

Perfume is a riveting look into the mind of an obsessed man -- a murderer whose immorality and eccentricity put him on a par with Thomas Harris' unforgettable serial killers. As unlikeable and depraved as Grenouille is, you almost sympathise with him. He may be a monomaniac, but his perseverance and creativity and the originality of his quest are such you almost wish him to succeed, or at least to see how far he will get before he gets caught. Suskind does such a great job describing his obsession that you simply keep turning the pages, waiting to see what fate has in store for this horrible yet ever so original murderer.

The writing on display is beautiful. A tremendous lot of research went into Perfume, and it shows. The descriptions of the various perfume-making techniques are rich, detailed and thoroughly impressive. Suskind frequently devotes whole pages to explanations of parfumiers' secrets; it is testimony to the quality of his writing that they never get tedious. He also does a marvellous job evoking the odours of Grenouille's world and the way in which they affect him. With its many powerful descriptions of odours (both pleasant and unpleasant), the book is a veritable smellscape which makes you increasingly aware of the smells surrounding you. However, it is not without its problems. The middle chapters are a bit of a drag and the ending is so over the top that many readers will be put off by it. I was a bit put off by it myself, yet I can see why Suskind went for the grotesque touch. For all its scientific detail, Perfume is essentially a fairy tale, and anything but a strange ending would have been a betrayal. It's weird, but if you read the story as if it were fairy tale, the ending makes sense. It's a fairy tale with a fairy-tale ending, and then some.

Bizarre and unusual tale set in eighteenth century France. Grenouille is born without an odour and becomes obsessed with odours. He gradually moves through the novel learning all there is to know about perfume and scent and how to make, extract and distill it. Unfortunatley Grenouille is completely amoral with no feeling for anyone else. The story becomes increasingly bizarre and the ending is strange; difficult to stomach you might say!
It is a well written, beautifully crafted with rich language and an empty heart. Take it out of its historical context and stick it in a modern city and what do you have. Scent obsessed loner murders 26 young girls for their hair and scent; we do not know their names (apart from one), they are merely victims; all very young. None of the victims are male and there are no significant female characters in the book (Ok. I know teenage boys don't smell that sweet! But I did wonder at Grenouille choosing young girls as he didn't seem to find any odour offensive). A heart warming story of a serial killer, who objectifies women. American Psycho anyone!!
As you may have guessed I didn't find the story all that convincing and as for the orgy at the end, I think the author ran out of ideas; or possibly forgot himself and thought he was writing for Playboy. Nevertheless, it passed a wet afternoon and there were a few laugh out loud moments (not entirely sure they were meant to be funny though!)

I'd like to make something very clear with my review of this book. I normally don't go overboard with the whole "the movie vs. the book" argument because I'm not interested in making people's decisions for them, even though I'm strongly opinionated about the subject. But this is a case where I have to speak out. Süskind has created here a work of literary art in prose, and I take that seriously. I admire lots of books but I wouldn't say this about any old novel. The movie "Perfume" makes an utter mockery of this artwork, its incredible language (even in translation) and its profoundly disturbing character. The movie is to this book what a smudge of dirt is to a brilliant, glowing star. The movie not only fails to capture the depth and profundity of the prose but also of its unique darkness and unsettling moral bleakness. "Perfume"'s central character (in many ways, its only character) is far beyond some simplistic "good" or "evil." Rather, he is utterly disconnected from humanity. He lacks a fundamental concept of agency in other people, who are essentially conveyors or producers of smells and nothing more. He kills, not with any idea of transgression, but simply as he would break an object in order to smell it. In this he is far more terrifying than any serial killer or other contrived "evil" character, and the story of his incredible and absurd life leaves one with a deep darkness that takes a long time to dissipate after the novel is closed and shelved or passed on.

The movie, as I saw it, conveyed none of this existentially disturbing character, but merely his salient features; i.e., his uncanny ability to smell and dissect smells, and even then can't possibly describe what he senses with the book's vividness and detail. In short, viewers are left with a paltry, thin gruel that denigrates and shames the original book and its author.

If I could only have one word to describe this novel it would have to be "original". What an idea, what a concept Suskind came up with for this story, for this character. Fortunately I have more words available and I have to use them. Words like creepy, disgusting, sick, vile, etc. etc. It's the story of a serial killer in 18th century France. The victims - young girls, virgins. Predictable you say, well not so much. Sherlock Holmes would have struggled solving this case I believe. Very well written, but difficult to read in some parts.
4 stars

Wow, was this one disturbing. Our main character was born with an incredibly good sense of smell, but without any smell to his own body. He uses these anomalies to work his way from being a detested orphan to a celebrated parfumier, but ultimately, he's looking to acquire power over other people. He uses his gifts in the most grotesque ways to achieve this.

It's so weird describing a book this dark as anything pleasing to the senses, but I suspect that's the whole point. This book will have your nose on alert; the smells described so evocatively are, at turns, repellent and luscious. It's a sensory rollercoaster and it's deeply unsettling.

" فكيف تمنى النفس بالخلاص من السفاح ؟ إنه أغشم من الطاعون، يمكن الهرب من الطاعون لكن لا يمكن الهرب من هذا المجرم "

أى جنونٍ هذا ؟ كيف خطرت هذه الفكرة فى بال الكاتب .. ماذا فعل ليخرج لنا هذه الرواية ؟
رواية غريبة وفكرة مبتكرة ومبهرة، وهى تقريباً متكاملة على الجانب الادبى .

جان باتيست غرينوي، صاحب أدق أنف فى العالم، الفتى الذى إستطاع بأنفه إحصاء كل الروائح -والروائح التى لا نعرف لها نحن رائحة- لكنه ولد وعاش بدون رائحة ويظل يسعى أن يجعل لنفسه رائحة تجعل الناس يحبوه لدرجة العبادة وفى طريقة لعمل هذا العطر يستحل لنفسه قتل الكثيرين .

الحقيقة أنك تستطيع التخلى عن عينيك عند قرائتها، فهى ستعرف طريقها الى أنفك، فقط دعها تتغلغل إلى أعماقك وأستمتع .

Due to a bit of a cold lately, I couldn't smell the cinnamon sprinkled on my Frothy Coffee, nor the aromas of fresh croissants walking past the patisserie, or the preparation of an evening meal consisting of mussels cooked in garlic butter. I love these smells, they are just as important to me as taste, damn this cold!, if only I had the nose of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, having a cold wouldn't have made any difference, I could smell the fresh fish markets from a mile away!. No interest though in hunting virgins for their scent thank God.

Süskind's novel (which I didn't even realise has been so popular) is Set in 18th century France, and tells the grim story of one Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a physically and emotionally abused orphan who is blessed with a supernatural gift, the great sense of smell. His frenzied obsession for odours guides him in a ghastly perverse way to search for the lost origin of his identity. A genius of aroma, Grenouille himself lacks a personal odor, signifying an absence of individual identity, but never mind, he can just go about stealing that of others. As he discovers his olfactory virtuosity, he becomes increasingly obsessed with inventing new fragrances, particularly his own, which he attempts to create artificially by extracting and blending the corporeal scents of young virginal women he murders. His great hope is to create the ideal perfume that will give him the magical essence of identity. He despises the rest of mankind, but still is solely driven by a desire for the attention and affection of others, he wants to be top dog, the hell with everybody else. At the moment of his crowning glory, however, Grenouille knows that the aura of identity created by his magic perfume is an illusion, and that it has been hate rather than love that drove him to become a genius of perfuming. After this epiphany, Grenouille goes barking mad, and surrenders himself to a gory finale.

This book was good, I enjoyed it for the most part, but for me, it wasn't great, as viewed by a lot of others. The plot is unique and skilfully done, not only in Grenouille’s characterization, but also because Süskind has done his homework on 18th century France and the science behind perfume. He describes Grenouille and his actions with a detached demeanor, thereby heightening the horrific nature of Grenouille’s actions by not commenting on that nature, this leads to the problem though of very little coverage in Grenouille's despair as he realises that everything he did was in vain and ultimately unsatisfying to both him and me as the reader. And the repetitive prose and unfocused paragraphs had me skimming the odd page here and there. I can see why it has had big appeal, because on the surface, the premise is so startlingly different, so kudos there, and he gets a range of emotions from sympathy when a filthy young orphan, to disgust and hatred when he starts his murderous quest.

Even tough the chilling horrors of Grenouille's actions are painted in such realistic tones, the novel on the whole never really got under my skin as I thought it would, it's good in places but pretentious in others, and summing up the central character he was just too two-dimensional for my liking. Not the sort of book I would normally read, so at least it was a break from the norm.
Although I am still a long way off wondering around in grandpa slippers, I felt this novel was maybe intended for a younger audience.
Forget the fish guts, cow hide, boiled puppy and dead virgins, I will stick to the mint, lavender, bergamot, sandalwood and tonka bean of Jean Paul Gaultier.

A lightly scented 3/5

ahahaha wtf were those last pages??? WILD turn of events even by this novel’s standards