Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Una storia geniale, con uno dei protagonisti più negativi che abbia mai incontrato, terribile ma al tempo stesso magnifico. La storia ti cattura dalla prima all'ultima pagina con continui cambi di rotta, quando credi di aver capito il verso della storia ecco che tutto cambia fino allo splendido finale.
Assolutamente da leggere!!!

This was one of the most clever tales I've had the fortune of reading - but also one of the most contrived.
From the very beginning, the author makes it clear that Grenouille, the antagonist, is nothing to root for - he has no semblance of a conscience, for starters. And while you want to explore such an original character further (a person with a supernatural sense of smell), his character development is diluted in favor of showing the reader how perfumes are made, imitated, and even reverse-engineered - which tends to get on your nerves after a while.
If you can stand a linear narrative, and don't mind reading up on a completely new subject (because let's be honest - who has ever read up on how, exactly, the smell of jasmine flowers is imbibed through oils?), then this book is a must read. The plot idea alone is worthy of praise - the plot is just icing on the cake.

Many things about this book has compelled me to give it a 5 star rating. It's captivating, but in a weird morbid way like the way you can't tear your eyes off something that is so so weird, out of this world, and quite often disgusting and horrifying. Trigger warnings apply at the end of this review because hoo boy did this book have a lot.

The story opens with the unwelcome and unceremonious birth of the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille in the stinkiest spot of all Paris, and indeed in all of France. As he grows, being kicked from place to place, he begins to realize that he has a truly extraordinary gift of smelling things. You'd think that he has dog-like levels of sniffing and teasing out scents, but Grenouille's talent goes far, far beyond that of any mortal creature. Soon he finds himself in the house of a parfumer where he learns the art of parfumerie, and Grenouille has found just the scent he wants to capture - that of young virgin girls.

From the blurb and my above description, it might seem like this book is clearly going to be some sordid serial killing with lots of sexual violence but - it actually isn't. Grenouille is a very strange protagonist. He's almost sympathetic in the first half of the book when everyone around him is either repulsed by him or only suffers his company for as long as they can manipulate him for their gains. While one might chalk up Grenouille's repulsiveness to the fantasy elements of the book, the fact that a lot of it is also ascribed to superstition in the plot feels like it's sending a message. What would Grenouille have turned out to be if he had been raised in a less superstitious and perhaps more loving environment?

Grenouille is quite certainly psychopathic. I know that term conjures up images of serial killers often with depraved sexual appetites and whatnot, but I mean to describe him in the sense that he has no conception of emotions, feelings, or anything that makes humans human. It's almost as if he is completely separate from the human experience and a lot of times he feels like an alien being with some resemblance to a human. That also means he does not have the same motivations and desires as humans do, including almost a complete lack of sexual interest in any way. He has a weird, almost child-like innocence for most of the book, which is honestly an extremely weird thing to say about a murderer.

The writing of this book was beautiful. I've never been one to appreciate scents in general, but this book did such an amazing and immersive job in describing the scent-scape of 18th century France, from the roiling stink of the cities to the clearer and thinner fragrance of the countryside. The plot itself was already plenty engaging but the writing was what kept my eyes glued to the page. The plot was already madness to begin with, so I guess I was surprised at how it managed to culminate in even more madness still. Yet, the ending was oddly befitting, though it was also a lot of jaw-dropping WTFery.

I would only be a little cautious of this book potentially glamourizing serial killers or psychopaths. This is not just historical fiction, but actually historical fantasy. People like Grenouille do not exist, and it would be a mistake to imagine that there is anything sympathetic about the murders that he eventually commits, nor is that remotely excusable in the real world.

TW: Body horror, infidelity, child abuse, child death, infidelity, references to incest, graphic violence, murder, animal abuse, animal death

The writing is exquisite. The plot though. Second half drags quite a bit & tested my patience. The language kept me going I guess. Also as someone whose olfactory functions are majorly impaired by severe allergy, the plot was a bit too much of a stretch for me, may be.

3.5. Why Goodreads doesn't allow for non-whole ratings is beyond me. There's so much that lies between a 3 & a 4.

A clear sign of a really great book is when suggesting it resembles a drug deal. With other books you praise the character development, the plot, the use of language, the deeper meaning, but with something as intoxicating as the Perfume by Patrick Süskind, you're reduced to oh man, it's fu***** great, trust me, you have to try it, probably with a crazy look that would make your mother worry about the kind of things you do in your spare time.

link to full review

This book will haunt me deeply for a long time. This book in equal measures disgusted and fascinated me. The descriptions of scent in this novel were so intoxicating and visceral and I loved the originality of using the sense of smell as the frame through which to feed through the story. I loved how when reading this book it had elements of Lolita and Frankenstein, both books I really enjoyed! This book is dark and at times unnerving but I loved the skill of Suskind's writing that he could evoke uneasiness and morbid fascination from his readers. I hungrily devoured this book within two days and found it such an easy and gripping read. I can understand how people might have found the ending a slightly exaggerated ending and the beginning rather slow. However I felt the book was a really well fleshed out story that explained the character and motives of Grenouille properly. A perfectly filled in plot that defies a genre. A guilty yet indulgent read for me. I would highly recommend!

3.5*
Perfume, en pocas palabras, es la historia de un hombre sin escencia que tiene un gusto profundo por las escéncias del mundo.
Este libro no fue de mis favoritos, pero eso no le quita lo bien escrito y desarrollado que estaba. Patrick Süskind nos logra llevar a la mente de Grenouille con una prosa exquisita. Cada detalle de Perfume esta bien planeado, y la historia se cierra en una muy buena manera.
Las descripciones, por otro lado, las consideraría una espada de doble filo. Estas hacen parte de la mayor parte del libro.Y aunque yo tambien fui embelesada por estas, hubo un punto donde me distrajeron y alejaron de la lectura.
Otro aspecto que no me agrado tanto del libro fue el poco enfoque en las víctimas. Para mi gusto, se sintió un poco acelerado.
En conclusión, este no es uno de los libros que me gustaria releer pero no me arrepiento de haberlo leído en un primer lugar.

Perfume is a wonderfully perverse character study of the dichotomy between being an acutely sensual artisan and a callous sociopath. His descriptions are as vivid, ethereal, and visceral as the scents the protagonist determined to capture.

—-
“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.”

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille - human or monster? Both? Just when I found myself feeling sympathetic to this young man who grew up without human kindness, the monster side of him would emerge and I could sense his scorn for people he fooled with his pretense of humanity. This was a beautifully written book about the importance of smell that we all take for granted and how one man with an incredible gift took advantage of people.

It's tough to describe this book. It's creepy and equally as beautiful for its prose. The story tells of an orphan (never loved by anyone – his mother birthed him in a fish stall and left him for dead) who was born w/o a scent of his own but was born, however, with a superhuman sense of smell. He grows up to work in several perfume shops learning how to extract the essence of various flowers. Later he uses these techniques to experiment and kills small animals for their oils in hopes to create a human-like scent for himself. Once he catches a whiff of what he thinks to be the most glorious scent in the world, that of a young virgin, Jean-Baptiste can't help but to kill the girls so that he can bottle their essence forever. He wants to make their scents his own so that he too can be loved and embraced by the people of Paris. The imagery is captivating. At times the author goes into a bit too much detail about something or other, but it does not distract from the book at all. The story ends with a bit of a twist. I give this 3.50 to 4 stars.

Pachnidło to najgłośniejsza powieść Patricka Suskinda, która zdobyła uznanie w literackim świecie.
Osadzona w XVIII - wiecznej Francji powieść to historia Jana Baptysty Grenouille'a, człowieka obdarzonego nieprawdopodobnym zmysłem powonienia. Narrację Pachnidła wyróżnia emfaza obecnego w każdej scenie zmysłu węchu Grenouille'a, a w opisach nie brak “zapachowych” szczegółów. Autor kreśli piękne obrazy zapachów codziennych przedmiotów, np. pisze o głębi i różnorodności zapachów, jakie wydaje drewno, a także o manipulacji zapachami nieobecnej wytwórcom perfum.
Autor unika literackich chwytów, by skupić się na psychologicznym aspekcie swych postaci. Niewątpliwy psychopata Grenouille jest przekonany, że jego wyjątkowy zmysł węchu wynosi go ponad zwyczajne człowieczeństwo. Wierzy, że obdarowując ludzkość najsubtelniejszy woniami, uda mu się nad nią zapanować, ale w świecie zapachów obsesyjne szuka tego jedynego, który byłby doskonałym zapachem, zapachem nad zapachem.

“Czym ma być pachnidło:
subtelność, moc, trwałość, rozmaitość oraz porażające, nieodparte piękno.”

Devido ao subtítulo do livro “história de um assassino”, pensei que se tratasse de um serial killer sem escrúpulos todavia apercebi-me que não seria assim nas primeiras páginas do livro.
Esta obra retrata a vida de Grenouille e descreve detalhadamente todos os aromas para que o leitor entenda a intelectualidade desta personagem.
Ambas as situações que relatei, fiizeram com que a leitura não fosse aprazível e que se tornasse fastigante.