What the actual fuck did I just read

Paris, city of 1000 lights.  City of infinite smells.  A tick, a toad, a spider, a gnome.  Set in the 1700's.  A man who can see in the dark, who revels in the moonlight, and has a nose to rival the most polished makers of perfumes.  A tale for the senses, and different from anything I have ever read.

"Había encontrado la brújula de su vida futura. Y como todos los monstruos geniales ante quienes un acontecimiento externo abre una vía recta en el espiral caótico de sus almas, Grenouille ya no se apartó de lo que él creía haber reconocido como la dirección de su destino: tenía que ser un creador de perfumes. Y no uno cualquiera, sino el perfumista más grande de todos los tiempos."

Pero qué novela tan interesante ha escrito Patrick Süskind… Este es otro de esos libros que yo veía en los estantes de la librería, o sobre el cual, muchos lectores reseñaban pero que no había tenido yo la oportunidad de leer.
Es verdaderamente original y sorprendente la manera en que Süskind crea el personaje de Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Sencillamente brillante.
Han existido en la literatura famosos asesinos (creo que Raskólnikov de "Crimen y castigo" es uno de los más emblemáticos), pero en el caso del personaje principal de "El perfume" lo que sobresale es casualmente su sorprendente naturaleza y originalidad.
El hecho de que Grenouille haya nacido sin ningún tipo de olor personal y un sentido del olfato tan perfecto, a punto tal que hasta él mismo sabe que sólo puede aprovecharlo para asesinar, le da todo el sentido a la trama del libro para que los sucesos de su vida sean lo más importante.
El olfato de Grenouille le permite distinguir todo tipo de olores, hedores, fragancias, tufos, aromas, emanaciones, vahos, esencias y por supuesto, perfumes. Nada escapa a su olfato, un sentido que para muchos es el menos importante de los cinco que poseemos en el cuerpo humano.
Desde su infancia, Jean-Baptiste es alguien que no tiene madre, que no siente dolor ni sentimiento de amor alguno. Con el correr de los años se transformará en un ser insensible y desarrollará, a partir de su peculiar habilidad una extraña forma de comportamiento que lo llevará a cometer asesinatos, siempre hacia jóvenes y bellas muchachas virginales.
Otro aspecto para destacar es la manera en la que está narrado el libro y hay que felicitar a Süskind por ello. La historia está ambientada en la Francia del siglo XVIII y Süskind la relata como un aplomado escritor del siglo XIX. Es excelente su dominio de la narrativa, ya que esto se asocia a lo original del personaje y porque además mantiene el suspense de lo que pasa con Grenouille. Considero también que las primeras quince páginas son atrapantes y hacia el intermedio del libro, el autor logra que el lector no pueda desprenderse de la lectura.
Tal vez el momento más chato de la historia es cuando Süskind narra los siete años en que Grenouille se recluye en la montaña de Auvernia, pero rápidamente la historia vuelve a tener un vivo interés, precisamente a partir de que vuelve a cometer tantos asesinatos, y al llegar a esta parte es clave el hecho de haber leído sobre sus andanzas en la perfumería de Giuseppe Baldini, de sus forzados trabajos con el curtidor Grimal, de su primera víctima, la muchacha pelirroja de Rue de Marais, o de sus estancia durante la niñez en la casa de madame Gaillard quien insólitamente carece de todo olfato.
Debo reconocer que lo que más me descolocó fue precisamente el final del libro. Para que se me entienda: los lectores en su mayoría leemos ficción y nos acostumbramos a todo tipo de historias fantásticas, pero en el caso del final de esta novela, realmente me esperaba otra cosa. A mi entender es demasiado inverosímil y el abrupto cambio sepulta un poco la intriga a la que me sometía en las primeras dos partes de la novela.
Y nuevamente, en la cuarta parte, que se compone de un solo capítulo creo que Süskind acelera el final de una manera casi abrupta (y también, demasiado inverosímil), contrastando con las extensísimas descripciones de las características tanto de la personalidad de Grenouille como de todos los sucesos que le ocurren en los distintos lugares que vive.
Estoy dudando en calificar a "El perfume" con tres o cuatro estrellas, pero me voy a inclinar por las cuatro por el hecho de que me mantuvo muy intrigado en un 85% de la historia y porque, además, cuesta mucho encontrar libros sobre asesinos tan pero tan originales como Jean-Baptiste Grenouille.

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

- فكرة الرواية مبتكرة وشيطانية.. القتل من اجل الرائحة لتحويلها عطراً!!!

- الترجمة سيئة جداً وهناك العديد من الاخطاء، لغوياً واملائياً.

- النهاية
ضعيفة لأنه لم يكن بإمكانه ابقاء قارورة العطر معه وقد تم سجنه وتعذيبه! او ان ترجمة هذا الجزء لم تكن صحيحة ويجب قرأتها بالنص الاصلي لاحقاً!

- اما الرمزية من القصة وخاصة في النهاية فهي إبداع كامل.

This is one hell of a strange inversion of a Jesus Allegory.

It's absolutely obsessed with the idea of innocence and scents, but more than that, it's a veritable encyclopedia of tons of smells. Borne of effluvia, the brilliance of his nose and his analytical ability sends him to the forefront of the perfumery business in Paris, nearly 300 years ago. Still steeped in effluvia, he discovers a dark secret about himself... he has no scent.

Of evil impulse and indefatigable drive, he recreates all kinds of scents and eventually creates the ultimate essence of innocence... and he, this empty, scentless creature of effluvia becomes, at least in the noses of everyone around him, the ultimate expression of love.

This was very, very fun. I particularly love inversions of old tropes. The ending fits so nicely. :)

A simple tale, a cornucopia of smells and description, and a fitting tale of justice.

"Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" is a staple in German literature, and understandably so, given its popularity and excellent writing. This literary masterpiece is written on a very unique premise; an eccentric, solitary, young man who possesses a remarkable sense of smell and who embarks on a mission to create the most heavenly scent by using the corpses of young virgin women. The premise alone, is interesting, but the idea that someone could navigate their way through the world, reach a status of royalty, and select murder victims all by using the most under appreciated sense (smell), is darkly fascinating. This gothic tale - with its over running theme of scent and odor - juxtaposes beauty and the grotesque, and it's underlying message is that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

I don’t know what compelled me to finish this book but it was the worst book I’ve ever read. I get that Jean-Baptiste has an extraordinary sense of smell and that his obsession leads him to murder. I understand the irony of it all: that he was born abandoned and died in an act of love. Even so, there was nothing about the story that was vaguely likable. I know it’s fiction but it seemed completely unrealistic and ridiculous to be even remotely appreciated. Furthermore, it takes forever to reach the part of the book where Jean-Baptiste actually starts to murder people because there’s a huge, useless portion of the book dedicated to 10 years of his life when he goes into hiding in a mountain. Also, there is no climax (unless you count the execution/orgy scene which I thought was the stupidest scene ever). How could someone be compelled to write such a useless piece of crap and worse, how could a book gain such fame as to be deemed an international bestseller?

I hate this book. It was a waste of time. I don't recommend anyone should read this book... not even my worst enemy!!

**EDIT: I’m reading my review 11 years later and it makes me laugh. Although I still don’t like the book and stand by my review I don’t know why my tone sounds so crazy.

Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.

The first thing I want to say is that, even though I didn't really enjoy it, I do fully recommend you read this book. It has a wonderful concept and will make you think so much about a lot of things-life, people, senses, smells, the way you see the world-that I think the enjoyment of the story is a little unimportant.

This is the story of a late-Seventeenth-Century French man who is born with an extraordinarily sensitive sense of smell, but does not smell of anything himself. This unusual concept means the whole story is wrapped tightly around the theme of smell: all about it, smelling it, knowing it, seeing it, wanting it and remembering it.

I did want to enjoy this book and I thought the beginning was quite wonderful. It really set up the themes of the book, and the plot, and the character, to such an extent I went through it with hope. Sadly, it falls away quite dramatically. It was unapologetically brutal and harsh; brash, brazen, quick, dark. The ending in particular I found exceedingly pointless, though I think that the ending itself was appropriate not only for the character but also, metaphorically, for the book, too. It was a disappointing ending, but I thought it very fitting that it were as abrupt as it was.

The concept of a man seeing the world and everything within it as smells is wonderful but I don't think it was executed to its full potential. In fact, I think it was so mis-used that it left the work a bit hollow at the end. Grenouille doesn't think like other people and as a result he is a social outcast, which both hinders and emphasises his talent for smelling. He sees everything as smells and, through him, we do, too. But I think there were many times when we didn't get the full sense of what he was smelling: I wasn't convinced of some of the smells-the description of a place-it wasn't evocative to me. Perhaps because I don't have as powerful nose as others, or perhaps because I'm a visual person, but there were times when it didn't read as wonderful descriptions of people and places in the medium of smell, but instead was just an obvious statement of what had already been described before. Unfortunately, Grenouille and other characters are neither likeable nor particular fleshed out. Even though I believe the 2D nature of the characters was done on purpose to illustrate Grenouille's own view of human beings, the fact that the book was in 3rd Person narrative meant it was felt wholly.

What I didn't like was the idea that virginity is something so utterly important that it has a special kind of scent. This is such a man idea of what virginity is-and weird from a character that has no concept of religion and god-that, whilst the idea of sexual desires and senses is intriguing, it holds no bearing on virginity and the act of losing it. It has nothing to do with puberty, with the beginning of the menstrual cycle or the end of it. It is simply a bit of skin that, quite often, isn't even there. Whilst I understand the concept of the need for virginal scent in this character, the whole idea really infuriated me, particularly considering this was written in the 80s and not, in fact, in the 18th century: you can have ideas of what virginity is in the 18th century but you cannot alter the proven fact: the scent of it. That made no sense. It probably shouldn't have annoyed me so much, but it did, and the book lost a lotof it's meaning. The obvious sexual themes of the book-wherein Grenouille uses smells as a proxy for sex, intimacy and other such things-were rendered completely meaningless by this, despite their intrigue.

The other things, the art of perfume making, the way Paris smelt back then, the way a man can lose himself in a hole completely, all felt a little lacklustre and simply ways to make the story get to where it was heading, as opposed to being part of a journey. It is a wonderful concept and I really enjoyed that part of it, but otherwise it was just another bloody book.


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n  “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.”n

Perfume is a story about social isolation; it’s a story about not belonging in the world and the negative effects this can wrought on one’s mind. It’s also a story about obsession, a singular pursuit for perfection regardless of the costs.

Consequences simply do not matter for Jean. He is completely detached from reality; he lives in his own world of scent, invisible to all others. Murder means nothing to him because he does not fully understand what he is murdering. He has no feelings. He cannot comprehend what it is to snuff out a life because he is not truly alive himself. He is dead inside and numb to all else in his differentness.

“He realized that all his life he had been a nobody to everyone. What he now felt was the fear of his own oblivion. It was as though he did not exist.”

“He had withdrawn solely for his own personal pleasure, only to be near to himself. No longer distracted by anything external, he basked in his own existence and found it splendid.”



As such befalls misery for all those that meet him. His talent is remarkable and his motivation (when roused) is unstoppable. His singular pursuit for his goal is uncompromising and he will stop at nothing to achieve the most perfect of scents. The secret ingredient he has been looking for comes his way and he cannot rest until he has it. Innocence is a mighty hard thing to harvest, though it is the missing piece he has been looking for; it will give his perfume the power to inspire love: it will be irresistible.

However, as the tale of Icarus taught us, those who fly too high will burn. As such the ending of this is simply perfection. The moment captures the heart of the book in one beautifully horrific frenzy of emotions and desire. The delivery is masterful. I knew it was coming (I’d seen the film many years previously) though I don’t think the film could every quite capture the intensity and euphoric nature of the situation.

The only reason I have not given this five stars is because I found it rambled a little in places. I think the story could have been cut back and made tighter and more effective, though I loved the prose and the plot. Jean makes for an interesting character study for sure.

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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.

Entretenida novela, aunque al final se hace bastante pesada.

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