Patrick Suskind - Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

19. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind (1985)
Length: 310 pages
Genre: Historical Mystery
Started: 6 December 2009
Finished: 16 December 2009
Where did it come from? From a Library Book Sale
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 1 April 2009
Why do I have it? I like historical mysteries


I just finished Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born without the personal scent that denotes us all as human beings. He was however born with a brilliant sense of smell. With such a brilliant olfactory sense, he rose from lowly tanner to the most famous perfumer in Paris. He was driven insane by the fact that he could smell human beings and to him, they all smelled horrible.

He spent seven years as a hermit living in a cave, during which time he discovered that he has no personal odor. When he reemerged from the cave, he had a diabolical plan to make his own personal scent and make people adore him. All he needed now was the sweet floral scents of virgins. I enjoyed this story even though it was a little long and give it a B+!

B+! - (89-94%)

May you read well and often

2 comments:

Carmen said...

I found Grenouille character morally repellent. Thanks to him almost hated this book.

Emeraldfire said...

Hello Carmen,
Thanks for stopping by and visiting my blog! :)

I totally agree with you. This might sound strange, but have you ever noticed that in most books that feature serial killers, the killer is portrayed as being somewhat personable or charismatic? They do morally repellent things, yes, but you'd have no idea what they were capable of, until you were in the "spider's web", so to speak.

With Grenouille, it was totally different - he hates people and goes out of his way to kill them, almost like he's "exterminating" them and the only possibly redeeming quality about them is their 'scent' - once Grenouille captures the women's 'scent' - they've served their purpose in his ultimate plan and have nothing else to offer him or the world (in his opinion). I was constantly trying to find something about Grenouille's past or in his actions that he showed some remorse for, but there was absolutely nothing that I could find! :)