Product Description

Survivor, genius, perfumer, killer: this is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He is abandoned on the filthy streets of Paris as a child, but grows up to discover he has an extraordinary gift: a sense of smell more powerful than any other human's. Soon, he is creating the most sublime fragrances in all the city. Yet there is one odor he cannot capture. It is exquisite, magical: the scent of a young virgin. And to get it he must kill. And kill. And kill.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4472 in Books
• Published on: 1987
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
An unforgettable account of the possessor of a fine nose and a murderous heart. The reek of 18th-century Paris comes right off the page as Suskind unravels his unpleasant tale with relish. (Kirkus UK)

From a West German playwright: an elaborate historical fable about smell, set in 18th-century France - obsessive, showy, heavily (if rather murkily) metaphorical, with a fair amount of black-comic dazzle but only a glimmer or two of genuine narrative magic. Suskind's monster - hero is Jean. Baptise Grenouille, born in stench-ridden Paris in 1738, an instant orphan (his fishwife-mother is beheaded for multiple infanticide), rejected by society, barely allowed to live. But, though ugly, deformed, and hateful, Grenouille has been born with a double-miracle when it comes to odor: he himself is odorless. . .and he has super-powers of smell for the odors around him! And soon, inspired by the glorious aroma of a luscious maiden (whom he kills), young Grenouille vows to become history's greatest perfumer, to "revolutionize the odoriferous world." He becomes the apprentice to a leading Parisian perfumer, quickly outdoing his master; he manically absorbs every smell-extracting technique, nearly dying of a broken heart when he fails to distill scent from glass, leather, or gravel. Then he spends seven years in glorious egomaniacal isolation, a godlike hermit in a mountain cave, free of human smells around him. But an olfactory identity-crisis - he's aware of, but can't quite smell, his own body odor - sends Grenouille back into society, now determined to concoct an artificial substitute for human scent. Eventually his obsession leads him to kill two-dozen lovely virgins, extracting a super-scent front their hair, clothes, etc. And though this ultimate perfume enables Grenouille to escape the guillotine (it makes him a demigod and drives the masses into orgiastic frenzies), he's nonetheless driven to suicide-by-cannibalism: "If he could not smell himself and thus never know who he was, to hell with it, with the world, with himself, with his perfume." In John Woods' stylish translation, Suskind's central premise has strong resonance at the start. At book length, however, the notion wears thin; the nature of Grenouille's paradox, with its thematic subtext (smell as human-ness, as self-knowledge, etc.), becomes both repetitious and inconsistent. And Suskind's storytelling, short on memorable supporting players, lacks the Candide-like brio needed to sustain involvement in such an arch and stagy (if frequently impressive) exercise. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Patrick Suskind was born near Munich, in 1949. He studied medieval and modern history at the University of Munich. His first play, The Double Bass, was written in 1980 and became an international success. His first novel, Perfume became an internationally acclaimed bestseller. He is also the author of The Pigeon and Mr. Summer's Story, and a coauthor of the enormously successful German television series Kir Royal. Patrick Suskind lives and writes in Munich.

Customer Reviews

A Bicycle Ride of a book
We set off full of excitement. We've heard this should be a great adventure and with completely new views of the world

The first few miles are a bit rough; not heavy going or steep, just a bit too bumpy. We're jolted and made uncomfortable by the brutality and the setting. Do we really want to go much further on this road ?

But soon the path becomes easier. Still uphill, but at least the rocks and potholes have been mostly left behind. We've got some momentum going and there's chance to look around and appreciate where this journey's headed; where it's been so far. The colours are bright, the air fresh and on the whole it's turning into a good day out.

And although we know it's coming, (after all we've been pedalling uphill all this time), the crest of the hill still catches us by surprise. Pedalling becomes easier and all too soon we can't pedal fast enough to keep up. There's no choice but to just stick out our legs and enjoy the ride as we career down the slope.

But it's shorter than we expect. And here are those potholes again. A couple of bumps and it's all over. We're in heap on the floor - unhurt but a bit shaken and disorientated; the bicycle upside down with wheels spinning to a slow, ticking stop.

After a quick dusting off we head back home by the shorter road. But there is a niggling sense of disappointment. Did we miss a turning somewhere? or was the route was marked wrong ? Perhaps one day we'll try the ride again and take the last bit a little slower.

I couldn't finish it
Normally I wouldn't have the audacity to judge a book without finishing it, but I really couldn't tolerate another page. The written style of this book is grating and awkward, and I felt like going through it with a red pen, then keeping the copy editor in for detention.

The long and short is that it's badly written. The dialogue isn't just stilted; it's mounted on a unicycle. I don't know if person translating it into English is a native speaker, but the narrative voice certainly isn't. How are we supposed to pay attention to the story with all this going on?

Dear Patrick Süskind, I'm sorry for judging your book so harshly, but you really should choose a better translator for your future works.

Overrated
A weird and unsettling book. It included some tedious description about things I found uninteresting (the ways purfumers distill/mix their scents etc) and this put me off (I was tempted to skip paragraphs). It was, however, creepy and off-beat enough to keep me focused and so I read until the end.

There is also alot of build-up and background info regarding the protangonist. This was good to a degree in setting the characterisation and atmosphere, but disappointing in that it didn't get to the meat and potatoes of the action (the multiple murders!) until quite near the end. I found this to be an anti-climax.

The ending left me feeling slightly unsettled and glad that the book was over and I could read something else.

Although I wouldn't call it absolutely 'gripping', it did interest me enough to read on and see what happened in the end (although to be fair, my time probably could have been better spent doing other things).

All in all, an overrated book but worth a look perhaps if you want something unusual.