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Man patiko, kad autorius aprašė kiekvieno personažo likimą. Lyg prie kiekvieno įvykio skrupulingai sudėlioti taškai. Pabaiga tikras triumfas, tikslas kurio taip siekė.. Man ši knyga atradimas, mėgavausi kiekvienu puslapiu ir skaityčiau dar kartą

هذه الرواية لا تُقرَأ فقط.
بل يُترَك شذاها يتغلغل إلى جيوبك الأنفية لتتشممها ببطء !

أنصح بها لمن يبحث عن الفكرة الغريبة المُبهرة، وروعة الأسلوب معاً.

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

"hay en el perfume una fuerza de persuasión más fuerte que las palabras, el destello de las miradas, los sentimientos y la voluntad. La fuerza de persuasión del perfume no se puede contrarrestar, nos invade como el aire invade nuestros pulmones, nos llena, nos satura, no existe ningún remedio contra ella".

This was a re-read for me, having read it around 2005. I recalled enjoying it, enjoying the writing which was overwhelmingly descriptive of the scents and odours throughout the book, and enjoying the dark character of Grenouille.

Reading it again some fifteen years later was equally enjoyable, and I retained the four stars I awarded it when I joined Goodreads (which, lets face it, is just an estimation based on recollection of lots of books).

I don't intend to plot outline - there are loads of reviews to do that, so there really is no need. I will touch on things I thought well done...

The amount of research the author did to describe the methods and techniques used in the tannery and the perfumers was impressive. It was very detailed, and as Grenouille learned, so did we as readers. N0t that I would be in a position to criticise, but it seemed very legitimate and accurately described.

The writing of Grenouille was clever - he was presented as a genius, a psychopath and a repellent man, but all the more fascinating for it. We see his disdain for mankind, his feelings of superiority, and his rapid learning, and his manipulations using scent. Either the translation is brilliant, or the writing and translation are very good!

And one minor quibble - long paragraphs. I am generally not a fan of long paragraphs, and some of them in this book get a bit long-winded. I don't resent them when they suit the tone (which most of them do) - for example the breathless learning of something that take effort to explain, but long for the want of some editorial tidying I dislike. Only a minor quibble here though.

And so to the ending (no spoilers), while it was sudden and I see other reviewers were disappointed, I thought it fitting, and ultimately Grenouille achieves all he can imagine.

Some quotes I enjoyed:

n  In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.

-

He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.

-

In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys, the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries, and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. The rivers stank, the marketplaces stank, the churches stank, it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces. The peasant stank as did the priest, the apprentice as did his master’s wife, the whole of the aristocracy stank, even the king himself stank, stank like a rank lion, and the queen like an old goat, summer and winter. For in the eighteenth century there was nothing to hinder bacteria busy at decomposition, so there was no human activity,either destructive or constructive, no manifestation of germinating or decaying life, that was not accompanied by stench.n

4 stars.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is about odors, smells, scents, bouquets, aromas, stenches, miasmas, etc. and their influence over people’s senses and, ultimately, actions and decisions. Now what if you could capture such influence and make it yours? What if, with such power in your hands, you could control people, lure them, abuse them, and have them do whatever you want without them ever being the wiser? How much time would it take before you, the master perfumer, began to fall prey to your own newfound ability, then went to town with it and altogether joined the dark side, succumbing as a result to all its seductive, alluring, and murderous vices and perversions? Well, if you are so inclined to find out, the answer is in this book, which, truth be told, is an absolute masterpiece… that is, until you reach the end. And then, even though you know it couldn’t have ended any other way, you can’t help but notice a wistful fragrance of might-have-beens in the air as you reluctantly yet gladly turn the last page.

OLIVIER DELAYE
Author of the SEBASTEN OF ATLANTIS series
n  n

This book starts out interesting, I will give it that much. It is a story of a reclusive man, who, born without a personal odour, becomes obsessed with creating the perfect human scent. The description is interesting, and while Suskind paints a perfect picture of the scene, the idea itself is void of true substance of meaning, and tires quickly. The only thing to be valued in this book is Suskind's style of writing. The underpinning values or morals in this book is simply non existent, there is no need to probe into it, as its concepts lay obviously on the surface, with no real meaning to deduce from the work. As a read for entertainment, it may be worth it. It seems to be a fairly empty novel; which is supported by a brief synopsis. - Man kills 25 virgins, wraps them in lard to collect their scent, creates a perfume, wears the perfume on the day of his exucution, and since the scent is so "divine" it catalyses love and captures the town, weaving a spell over all its people. An orgy follows, and then Grenoiulle decides he wants to die and covers himself with the perfume, walks into a derelick park and allows himself to be eaten by those who want a piece of him due to his amazing scent. All in all, the crazy perfumer gets eaten by cannibals. Wow! - Shitty read if you ask me

Entretenida novela, aunque al final se hace bastante pesada.

Entertaining novel, although in the end it gets quite heavy.

Scent is such an underestimated, but oh so powerful sense. I love perfumes, but I have been wearing the same one since I was about fifteen because I was never able to find another one that “fit” with my skin and body chemistry as well as this one does. When my husband and I were dating and living in different neighborhoods, I constantly stole his sweaty t-shirts to sleep in because they smelled like him. When we cleaned out my grandmother’s house after she passed away, I opened a bottle of her Fleurs de Provence bubble bath and cried uncontrollably for an hour because that scent had brought back memories of childhood sleepovers with the brutality of a slap in the face.

So when I heard of this book, about a man with a supernaturally powerful olfactory sense, who’s obsession with the scent of a lovely red-headed virgin drives him to murder, I knew I had to read it.

Suskind’s prose is incredibly sensual and seductive. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is a horrible psychopath of a character, but there is something darkly fascinating about him that pulls the reader in. He’s greedy, calculating, patient, gifted with the ability to identify and catalogue odours in his mind the way some artists do with colors. His survival was unlikely: abandoned by his mother from his birth under a fish stall, mistreated by wet-nurses, raised in an awful orphanage, worked almost to exhaustion in tanneries… And yet he endures to learn the fine art of perfumery, how to extract smells from flowers and other less orthodox objects – all of this with the ultimate goal of capturing the smell of the loveliest woman in France…

I loved this bizarre, gorgeously written romp thought 17th century France, the detailed descriptions of smells, from the most putrid garbage dumps of Paris to the pure and delicate flower fields of Grasse - and the way Suskind manages to make this story both a feast for the senses and repulsive at the same time. I’m not sure I would describe this novel as a horror story, even with such an evil main character as Grenouille: I feel like this book can be compared to a blend of Poe and Dickens, with just a touch of Nabokov thrown in there. This story of obsession and madness is dark and creepy, but there are also moments of absurd humour (Grenouille’s master, Giuseppe Baldini, is utterly ridiculous and hilarious) and fascinating information about the process of making perfume, distilling essences and so on. The completely over-the-top finale I found to be absolutely fitting: a grotesque ending for a depraved creature.

This is a creepy but elegant little book that I highly recommend for fans of gothic and historical fiction, and people who just like good, ornate writing.

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...

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.

إذا كانت الترجمة خيانة للنص الأدبي - وهي خيانة مغتفرة على أية حال- فإن تحويل بعض الروايات إلى أفلام خيانة لا تُغتفر. هذا ما خطر ببالي و كاميرا المخرج الألماني "توم تايكوير" تبتعد ببطء عن مِـزَق "غرينوي" في نهاية سوريالية لقصة مربكة. لقد استثار "زوسكند" خيالي لأقصى حدوده – إن كان ثمة حدود - و جاء الفيلم ليضغطه و يحشره في إطار بدا ضيقًا بالمقارنة مع الرواية. لم تكن إمكانات المخرج متواضعة بقدر ما كان خيال الكاتب جامحًا، عصيًا على التجسيد.

مستغرقًا، متماهيًا، و بنبرة لا تخلو من السخرية، يتحدّث "زوسكند" في روايته الفانتازية المضمّخة بالعطر، عن كينونة الإنسان التي "لا نستطيع أن نثبّت فيها أنظارنا بوضوح، لأنها مموّهة مضبّبة كصورة عن قاع بحر ترتعش عليه الأمواج"، يسخر من قبح الإنسان و جماله في آن، رائحته التي تثير الحب، و تلك التي يمكن محاكاتها بمركبات تافهة، قيمته التي تضفيها عليه الثياب و حلاقة الشعر و قناع مواد التجميل، و خضوعه بشكل أو بآخر لسلطة الحواس، قلقه من التفرّد و خوفه من فقدان ما يملكه و ما قد يملكه، و عن صعوبة العزلة و صعوبة العيش بين الناس. و أثار، بقصد أو دون قصد، عددًا من الأسئلة: من نحن؟ و ماذا نريد حقًا؟ مالذي يمنحنا الرضى و يردم الهوة التي تفصلنا عن الآخرين؟

كانت البطولة المطلقة للعطر، و إن كان ثمة بطل ثانوي فهو أنف "غرينوي" لا "غرينوي" نفسه، الركام البشري المهمّش، المعذّب، البائس، الذي لا تتجاوز قيمة حياته قيمة العمل الذي يؤديه، و الذي تعوزه الرائحة الخاصة رغم حاسته الخارقة في الشمّ من مسافات بعيدة، و قدرته على جمع آلاف الروائح النوعية و الاحتفاظ بها جلية بحيث " لا يتذكرها فقط إذا شمها من جديد، بل يشمّها فعلا إذا تذكرها". و لأن "من يبقى على قيد الحياة بعد ولادته في القمامة لا يستسلم بسهولة لمجاريف الحياة", تخبّط "غرينوي" في طريق وعر، متأبطًا حصته من الإهانة بكل صورها، إلى أن أمسك بطرف الخيط في شارع "دي ماريه"، و مضى بإصرار يناقض عدم اكتراثه الظاهري نحو الهدف الذي حقّقه أخيرًا، و حقّق به موته.

لم يرتكب "غرينوي" أخطاءه لتسوية الخلافات، أو لتحقيق مكاسب شخصية كما فعلت السيدة "غايار" مثلاً، أو الدباغ "غريمال" أو العطّار "بالديني" و غيرهم، كان كل ما يريده هو التعبير عن داخله، و الانسجام مع النسق ذي الرائحة الجبنية الحامضة؛ أن يلاحظ الناس وجوده، و يتخلّص من الشعور بأنه "بيضة الديك". لكنه أدرك متأخرًا، وهو يقف على منصّة الإعدام -بعد أن عبّر عن داخله و التفت الناس إليه- بأنه لا يجد الرضى في الحب الذي أفرزته الرائحة، و إذا كان اخت��اقها لم يمنحه السعادة، أو يردم الهوة السحيقة التي تسكنه و تحيط به، فلا بأس من الموت بها، و هذا ما حدث لاحقًا.

في هذا المشهد، يثير "زوسكند" سؤالاً آخر: هل الحب ردّة فعل كيميائية أكثر من كونه متعلقّا بالقلب و ناتجًا عن استحقاق؟ "ها هو جان باتيست غرينوي، المولود دون رائحة في أنتن بقعة في العالم، المتحدّر من القمامة و الخراء و العفن، الناشئ دون حب، الحي دون روح إنسانية دافئة، المتشكّل من العناد و طاقة القرف، الضئيل، القميء، الضالع، القبيح، المتحاشي، النذل في داخله و خارجه، بلغ لأن يحبه العالم أجمعين". لكن هذا الحب لم يرضِ "غرينوي"، و بخلاف المأمول "تصاعد فيه القرف من الإنسان و دسّ المرارة في نصره، فلا يمتنع عليه الفرح فحسب، بل ولا يشعر حتى بالتشفي. فما كان يحلم به، حب الناس، صار في لحظة النصر عبئًا لا يُطاق".

أدهشني كمّ الروائح الهائل و تركيباتها و وصف عمليات التقطير و مراحل إعداد العطر و فلسفته. فكرتُ وأنا أقرأ بأنه إن لم يكن "زوسكند" عطّارًا في وقتٍ مضى من حياته، فإنه كتبها إما بمساعدة عطّار، أو عفريت :)

أحببتُ فكرته و تدفقه و لغته و أسلوبه و تمكّنه التامّ من الكتابة، و أشعر بالامتنان لـ "كاميران حوج" لأنه نجح في إيصال ذلك كله بشكل لا يدعو للأسف على تعذّر قراءتها بالألمانية.

أخيرًا، إن كان عليّ الاعتراف بشيء في نهاية هذه المراجعة، أعترف بأنني أصبحتُ أنفخ منخري أنفي كلما وصلني خيط رائحة، في محاولة لسحبها كاملة و الامتلاء بها قبل أن أزفرها للخارج، و كأنني أكتشف قدرتي على الشمّ للمرة الأولى، أو أستعيدها بعد حرمان. آمل أن أكفّ عن ذلك في القريب العاجل، وألا تتحوّل إلى عادة. كما أعترف بأنني تشمّمت باطن مرفقي – أكثر من مرة- بحثًا عن رائحتي الخاصة التي يزعم "زوسكند" بأنها أوضح ما تكون في هذا المكان :)