Part of me is saddened by the fact that I'd seen the movie before I read this book, as the film is a very faithful adaptation, but on the other hand, I'm not sure I could've handled the suspense if I'd read this unaware of the ending. The prose is eerily detached, much like the protagonist, though it enhances the slow build to the novel's climax, rather than lessening my interest in the story. Grenouille is by no means one of the "friendly" serial killers that populate many recent works--Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series, for example--but I wouldn't have him any other way. ( )

PATRICK SUSKIND: Perfume

Listened on audio 2008

Original, inspired, literary, compelling.

Magic realism is something I tend to avoid since I bought the Lollipop shoes by Joanne Harris and abandoned it after a few chapters feeling cheated that I had been persuaded to a buy a book of complete and utter twaddle. Of course, all fiction is made up but it has to be believable to make it work. Or does it?

Perfume is not believable but it definitely worked for me. It is elemental, in the same way that Wuthering Heights is elemental. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is primitive and culpable, character traits that bring authenticity to the otherwise wholly magic and perverse art of his perfumery.

Grenouille was born in 1738 in the most putrid spot in France - a Paris fish market. He is described by the author as “an abomination” he has no personal odour and because of this people don't seem to like him, though they can't say why.

Grenouille is special however, he has one of the finest 'noses' in Paris, able to distinguish and isolate odours like no other. His talent is turned to profit in the perfume business and he makes a fortune. But it is not perfume that Grenouille wants to create but his own scent, which will make him irresistible. To do this he must extract the odour of a woman, while still a virgin: a process which unfortunately involves slaying the donor.

It is an epic novel with a sizeable cast and a plot that rambles with Grenouille all over France through the many years of his life including a spell of hermitage in a cave. It does wane a little in the middle but, in the final analysis, Perfume whisks you into the vile, crazy world of eighteenth-century France and the mind of a truly heartless murderer.

Suskind draws Grenouille as such a disagreeable protagonist that it is very hard for the reader to have any sympathy for such a vile monster. However, the real enjoyment of the book is the delusional, selfish, naïve, cruel, corrupt and – above all – ignorant – cast of characters that roam the back streets of the plot. If anything, these minor characters sparkle more than Grenouille and leave him rather dull and soulless in comparison, which may have been the Suskind’s intention.

Comic and pantomime it may be and yet there is a sobering message that all the fortune in the world is meaningless without companionship and acceptance.

You get the impression that Suskind was out to produce a great work of literature and has been successful, although the book is not without flaws, it would have benefitted from more editing and the final scene in particular verges on the farcical.

1985 literary historical cross-genre novel
(originally published in German as Das Parfum)

Patrick Süskind (born March 26, 1949) is a German writer and screenwriter who lives a reclusive life in Munich. ( )

Der Trick des Patrick Süskind: Kaum ein anderes Buch findet (gerade bei Frauen) so großen Zuspruch wie "Das Parfum" - aber wieso? Finden sie etwa die abartige Person des Jean-Baptiste Grenouille so bewundernswert? Freuen Sie sich daran, dass Autor Süskind Berge von toten Geschlechtsgenossinen anhäuft? Nehmen wir das Buch doch einmal auseinander, um es herauszufinden.

Von Anfang an sticht Süskinds Erzählstil ins Auge. Er versteht es meisterlich, das stinkende Paris in seiner Zeit zu beschreiben, liefert uns bildhafte Beschreibungen des Grenouille und seiner Mitmenschen, wechselt in seinen Stil von Zeit zu Zeit und erzeugt subtile Spannung.
Als der erste Mord geschieht, ist der Leser zunächst schockiert, obwohl vielleicht schon hier im Ansatz erklärt wird, warum Frauen (Ich spreche hier mitnichten von allen Frauen, sondern nur von denen, die das Buch so lieben!) dieses Buch (und seinen Antihelden?) so bewundern. Eine lange Zeit bleibt nun alles friedlich, exzessiv beschreibt Süskind, wie man Parfums macht, was Frauen sicherlich interessiert, mich aber eher gelangweilt hat. Nun gut, jedem das Seine. Kommen wir zum erzählerischen Höhepunkt, den Morden.

Rücksichtslos lässt Süskind noch einmal fünfundzwanzig Damen sterben, damit Grenouille (ich formuliere platt) sie zu Parfum verarbeitet. Es ist so gut wie sicher, dass hier der Schlüssel zum Problem liegt. Je länger man über die Stelle nachdenkt, desto klarer wird einem, warum so viele Frauen Grenouille (den ich als Scheusal empfand) sympathisch finden - es ist sein Drang, Parfum aus den Frauen zu machen. Es ist doch leicht nachvollziehbar, dass Frauen sich geschmeichelt fühlen, wenn Süskind ihnen erzählt, dass sie selbst ein Duft sind, der so lieblich, so stark ist, dass sogar Männer, die ihn tragen, von allen um sie herum geliebt werden. Es ist die Beteuerung Süskinds, dass sie aufgrund der Tatsache, dass sie Frauen sind (und daher besagten Duft in sich tragen) geliebt werden MÜSSEN. Ohne, dass sie sich darüber im Klaren werden, schlägt ihre Sympathie für Süskinds Idee an sich in Sympathie für Jean-Baptiste Grenouille um.

Vielleicht wirkt meine Rezension nun so, als hielte ich Das Parfum für ein schlechtes Buch, was nicht stimmt. Das Buch hat auch viele gute Seiten, die in den anderen Rezensionen nachzulesen sind und nicht zuletzt ist Süskinds Trick, Frauen für sein Buch und seinen Antihelden zu gewinnen, ein erzählerischer Trick, der sein Buch gegenüber vielen anderen sehr auszeichnet.

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the man who can smell his way into the world, was born in the most auspicious of places – in a wet market among the guts and scales of fishes. From then on, his life has been determined by the persistent call of his nose and he finds himself in situations that bring him closer to his goal: the extracting and packaging of the most fragrant perfume of all.

Grenouille is like an autistic savant. He has a gift: a hypersensitive sense of smell, more powerful than Wolverine's, so much so that he can break down a perfume into its basic components, and even recreate it given all the scent-ingredients. The genius in him can identify not only the components of a smell but also the exact proportions of each component, the exact formula to a perfume. Yet like an autist, Grenouille has the problem of connecting emotionally with people. He is an introvert, emotionally detached from the world, and his singular purpose is what keeps him plunging ahead in life.

In Perfume, translated from the German by John E. Woods, Patrick Süskind gives a portrait of the perfumer as an artist. He does so in the style of an inverted German fairy tale, a twisted strain of the tales of the Brothers Grimm. And as a Bildungsroman, eschewing the tradition of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, the epiphanies arrive and they come in the form of scents, of odors, and of concentrated essences.

Full review at:
http://booktrek.blogspot.com/2009/09/... ( )

Having not seen the film of this book, I picked it up on a whim (and the appealing design of the Bloomsbury classics cover). I'm very glad I did.

The descriptive prose flows wonderfully from page to page, with the murders themselves being almost a side note to the beauty and grotesque of the aromas. A comparison could be drawn to American Psycho, especially in terms of entering the main characters head, but without so many shock tactics.

If you read it as a standard crime novel, you'll be disappointed. However, the unusual manner in which the times are described, together with the variety of details that are touched upon provide an engaging read more akin to the classical fairy tales. The end of the book is not as tight as the beginning, but this does not particularily detract.

Certainly twisted, but overlaid with beauty and and the twists and turns of perspective. ( )