Perfume by Patrick Suskind Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Perfume
Book Review: A Sensual Pleasure
Summary: 5 Stars
I had heard nothing of the film but was curious when I saw the DVD on the rack at a supermarket. The cinematography was sumptuous and the story was so different and unique that I felt I had to read the book. I read it in French, but nevertheless I was surprised how similar were both the book and movie. For me, the book was a very dark fairy tale, on the same order as the film "Pan's Labyrinth." As rich as it is, I think the book could be analysed from a number of viewpoints, however, to mention one, in the book, the protagonist, Grenouille, secludes himself in a cave in an isolated part of France. The book covers his seven years of isolation, spent mostly dreaming, over a number of pages. The movie pretty much avoids this period for time constraints and for movement of the story line. However, what struck me about this passage was how it highlighted just how removed Grenouille was from society and the world. I'm unaware of any literary subject described as living in such a solipsistic universe as Grenouille. His talent for decrypting the world of smell is so keen that he is the 18th century version of a super-hero (or villain in this case). His ability married to a childhood of abuse and neglect projects him into such sociopathy that his murder of 25 young virgin girls means nothing, but is only a means to an end, that of distilling their essence into an olfactory remnant. Grenouille's creation, the ultimate perfume, is so powerful that it completely overwhelms anyone encountering it such that they lose all inhibition, all reason, all ego boundaries. Nevertheless, even holding the most potent force on Earth in his hand, Grenouille rejects the power and comes to a well-deserved end. While sometimes the book drags a bit, and some characters are introduced who don't particularly add to the overall development, the ideas posed by the book should, like the aroma of lavender soap, stay with you for quite some time after reading.Book Review: A Surprisingly interesting, unique story and character.
Summary: 4 Stars
I first heard of this novel in conjunction with the release of the movie "Perfume" and after reading some complimentary material from Roger Ebert about the original written work (translated from the German) I decided to give this story a try. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the story itself is very accessible & well written, and that the murders described on the book jacket are not where Suskind turns his graphic focus. Grenouille (sp?), the murderer, is a unique character. He is blessed (cursed?) with an incredible sense of smell and the ability to store any scent he encounters in the vaults of his memory for repeated enjoyment later. Think of him as a "scent savant." Furthermore, he has no smell of his own - no body odor, nothing. After surviving a less-than-ideal birth and subsequent rearing at the hands of wetnurses, monks, and tanners, He becomes an apprentice perfume maker and helps his mentor become one of the most popular perfumers in France by using his unique gifts to create evocative perfumes that dazzle the senses and sell for great sums of money. However, as Grenouille learns the perfumer's art we learn that his motives are suspect - scent is all he is concerned with, and he wants to learn to distill and extract odors of living things and objects, not just flowers and other plants used in perfuming. From there, the book follows G's relationship with scent and how he covets the life essence of young women, leading to a self-initiated hermitage, subsequent murder spree, and eventually a spectacular resolution of the plot. If you are wary of this book because you are not one who wants to read about graphic mutilations and "CSI" like corpse descriptions, then by all means don't worry. The murders are not the story...the character, his magnificent skill, and the progression of his life is the story. As the book jacket states, G kills over two dozen women...but not a corpse nor a murderous act is described in detail in the bunch, and this all happens in the last quarter of the novel, basically on just a few pages out of hundreds. If you can stomach "He then strangled her," then you've just read an example of how the murders are typically presented. Instead, we learn about how the scents relate to his thoughts and his motives and we learn how such a man came to the decisions he made. The finale, which I will not ruin here, seems unbelievable...but based on what we've learned in the preceding pages it makes sense and brings the story to a fantastic and memorable close. If you are looking for a unique "book club" book that will lead to interesting discussion, and a break from Nora Roberts, Michael Connelly, or Oprah's book club, then male and female readers alike might want to give it a look. It might not knock your socks off, but there is enough there to make it worth the time.Book Review: A Unique Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
Paris evokes a plethora of wonderful images, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame cathedral and the Mona Lisa, to name a few. When I think of Paris, I think high fashion, good food and wine. Ask me what Paris smells like and I couldn't say. I have never thought of Paris or any cities in terms of smells or aromas. However, Grenouille, the protagonist in PERFUME does just that. Although there is nothing wrong with his vision, he does not assess his surroundings visually, but purely olfactorily. His olfactory sense is so intensely refined that he is able to analyze complicated smells into individual scents. However, he does not, like all other humans, possess a smell of his own. He never did, even as a newborn. His obsession with smell, his single-minded search for the ultimate scent and total disconnect with humanity- with the exception to what scents he can harvest from them-results in the creation of a unique kind of evil. Peter Suskind does an awesome job of taking us on a journey into the mind of this man. Spinning the tale of Grenouille effortlessly, he make his story believable until the surprising end which came out of left field and left me wondering. I won't say much about the movie version, other than to say that watched without having read the book, it's probably good. However, it totally fails to capture the poetic descriptions of the olfactory circus in Grenouilles mind or the complexity of his personality. I highly recommend this book.Book Review: A dark, macabre gem
Summary: 5 Stars
Synopsis: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born in the eighteenth century, abandoned at birth in the slums of Paris. There is something odd about him, he has no personal smell, yet he has the most incredibly developed sense of smell, able to separate and identify every particle of every scent and store it in his memory. Through his cunning and planning he is able to become a perfumer, learning the skills necessary to create scents specific to his own plots and schemes. One day he chances upon a smell unlike anything he has ever come across before and begins a plan to take it for himself.
What a dark, macabre gem of a story this is. It opens with '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.' With this line I was hooked and stayed hooked right the way through to the fantastic ending. Grenouille is such a weird, vile little creature, utterly repellent and yet so sympathetic at the same time. Suskind describes him so well I could not only see him in my minds eye but feel him as well, making shudders up my spine. One example of this is: 'Grenouille was now standing up, completely unfolded to full size, so to speak, in the doorway, his legs slightly apart, his arms slightly spread, so that he looked like a black spider that had latched on to the threshold and frame.' This is such a unique story with an ending that is unexpected but so perfect. It has such a dark humour and is rich with desire, sensuality and lust. I really haven't read anything this different for a very long time, and strongly recommend it. I've now got my eyes out for Suskind's other works, they are very high on my TBR list.
Book Review: A good book
Summary: 4 Stars
I like this book. only that the used version I got was not in a great shape. Readable but not great