Perfume

Title: Perfume
Author: Patrick Süskind
Published: In original German in 1985. This book claims to have been printed in 1987 by Penguin Books, but there's a web address on the back. So I don't know.
Genre: Murder ballad
Pages: 263


If you've seen the movie made of this book, and liked it, READ THIS BOOK. If you haven't, feel free to read it anyway. You'll like it, I'm sure.

What's it about? Or rather, who? Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born in Paris on 17th July 1738, and orphaned almost immediately. No wet nurse, no kind monk wants to keep him as there is something inherently wrong with him. No one can quite say what, though. Grenouille himself knows that he has the keenest nose. In the world. He can smell anything, anyone, and save every smell into his own internal library of scents. It is no wonder that he makes his way to a perfumery.

If you're already familiar with the movie, this book is like the perfume Grenouille ends up making. The text pulls you in, seduces you with hardly any monologue, just beautiful narration, even when describing the horrible smell of, say, the fish market and cemeteries of Paris. Or, you know, senseless murder. My compliments to the translator. Beautiful work.

I love the movie, but the rule that the original book is always better than the movie applies here.


"Grenouille knew for certain that unless he possessed this scent, his life would have no meaning. He had to understand its smallest detail, to follow it to its last delicate tendril; the mere memory, however complex, was not enough. He wanted to press, to imprint his apotheosis of scent on his black, muddled soul, meticulously to explore it and from this point on, to think, to live, to smell only according to the innermost structures of its magic formula.

"He slowly approached the girl, closer and closer, stepped under the overhanging roof, and halted one step behind her. She did not hear him."