Perfume: The Story of a Murderer | Patrick Suskind

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer | Patrick Suskind | Good book

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Perfume: The Story...

	Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Patrick Suskind Vintage, 2001 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 410 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Olfactory-licious!

"Olfactory" (to have a smell) - what a word! It's used quite a bit in this novel and is the source subject of this novel. Sounds boring? Not on your life! Who would imagine building a murder story around the sense of smell? Or rather around a person born without a scent! The author is genius! The protagonist in this novel was a classic SICKO! No, as the author accurately described him, he was a "tick". As you read about the plight of the main character, society's rejection of him because he had no scent, his yearning to be absored in the scent of "pureness", you become empathetic toward his need to feel human, to satisfy the need to be noticed, to have a 'scent' of his own. However, empathy turns to repulsiveness as the story takes you to each new level of his obsession, his killings. This book had me up late at night anxious to read more about the obsessiveness of this character. The author's style of writing for the most part is matter-of-fact, straight to the point, not a lot of emotionalism, almost as if he was writing from experience, from a murderer's mind. However, there are narratives where the author is very poetic in his descriptive detailing of the obsession of this murderer and his pursuit to create the 'ultimate perfume'. As I was reading certain sections of this book, I found myself identifying with the obsession, trying to identify different odors in my house...I found myself slipping into the mind of the character when it came to training my sense of smell. (OK! enuf -- Stop it! back on course...) The author did an outstanding job in detailing the preciseness, the exactness of identifying the components of a fragrance - to the point of obsession. Even the reader is consumed, just as the murderer was, in trying to identify the makings of the "perfect perfume". Where most authors build a murder story based on the murderer's obsession with something they saw, sense of sight or touch, this author's creativity took the sense that is least thought of, the sense of smell, to build a story that was absolutly captivating, almost hypnotising. This story is extreme with graphic detailing of the stench and filth in which people lived in that era and the ending will blow you OUT the water! I can't imagine capturing the essence of this novel on film! All I can say is get the book, read it first, then see the movie (I hear the DVD is to be released on July 24th).

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Good book

An solid book, relatively quick and easy to read. The reader experiances the life story of a serial killer (the main character) with very...interesting....motivations. By the end you wish for him to be caught and stopped, yet at the same time, you want to escape to see if his theory is true.

The power of smell

Of all our senses, the sense of smell is the most powerful and emotive. Smell is called "the forgotten sense", surprisingly, considering that seventy to seventy-five percent of what we perceive as taste actually comes from our sense of smell.
The novel Perfume takes us on a journey of smells, though the slums of Paris to the perfumed stores of the city, through the flower gardens of Grasse to the scent of bewitching women. All this we perceive through the eyes, nay, through the nose of the protagonist, Jean Baptiste Grenouille.

The book is a literary assault on your olfactory system. It has been a really long time since I have read something so beautiful. The passages in this book are so vivid you can almost .... smell them.
The New York Times had this to say about the Suskind's prose
"Grenouille the perfumer becomes a kind of novelist, creating phantom objects in the air, but Mr. Suskind himself is a perfumer of language."

As the book progresses, we venture deeper and deeper into the pits of Grenouille's soul. The book is not for the faint-hearted. Don't read it if you cannot stand the thought of girls, puppies and other living things killed or people being eaten. But if you can withstand all that, the book is a treat!

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