Title: Perfume: The
Story of a Murderer
Author: Patrick Suskind
Genre: Historical
crime fiction
Star rating: 5/5
Summary: This novel
introduces a partially anosmic reader to a huge vocabulary of odours and
entrances you whilst you follow the protagonist's journey into becoming the
greatest perfumer of all time. Certainly, a rose amongst the foul stench of
eighteenth-century France.
Main review:
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
first came to my attention in 2012 whilst proofreading a Sixth Form student's
essay on the book. Her comments were so interesting, I felt compelled to read a
copy soon afterwards. I was absorbed from the very first line right through to
the end. I even discussed this with the student and was able to give further
insight into how she can enhance the content of her essay.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
recounts the tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with no smell of his own,
gifted with the best nose in Paris. He had a keen and precise sense of smell
and after his evanescent encounter with the girl from the rue des marais and
the girl from behind the wall, he soon realised that life would have no meaning
until he was able to preserve and possess their scent; their radiant aura; the
best perfume in the world. In order to do this, Grenouille needed the essence
of 25 virgins produced by cold-oil enfleurage.
It is actually the events before
Grenouille arrives in Grasse murdering virgins that I find most entertaining.
We are introduced to:
- Giuseppe
Baldini - an old perfumer and glover who took Grenouille on as an
apprentice
- The mountain
of solitude where Grenouille sought olfactory peace for seven years
- Grenouille's
purple castle - his private scent world
- The Marquis de
la Taillade Espinasse who attempts to restore Grenouille's health using fluidum
vitale.
The author's use of oxymorons is
peppered throughout the novel with great effect. For example,
"disgustingly good" was used by Baldini to describe his competitor's
perfume. This adds comedy value as even though his competitor was nothing but a
vinegar maker (and wasn't even a trained perfumer!), Baldini still had to admit
that upon smelling the perfume, his competitor was a virtuoso.
Even though the protagonist is an
abominable murderer, as a reader, you almost sympathise with him and almost condone
his actions as merely an obsession with achieving his long awaited precious
scent. He did not love another human being, he loved their scent. He
manages to distance himself from the actual bodies and views them as
disembodied scent. The fact that his first 24 victims were not given names,
just a brief physical description provides a certain anonymity to the reader
and does not allow us to develop attachments to them.
What I also liked about this book is
the author's description of the scents Grenouille creates and the descriptions
of smells by other characters. In Runel's laboratory, he created the scent
of humanness - the aura of personal odour, which consisted of a
disgusting base layered with fresh oily scents and then simultaneously disguised
and tamed with a bouquet of fine floral oils and diluted twice.
Overall, this is a well written story
that I will re-read over and over again and takes pride of place in my book
collection. Those who have an interest in fragrances or an interest in reading
fragrance reviews should appreciate the book for it's huge vocabulary of
odours.
Copyright J. Chan/Domestic Goblin
This review followed the book review
format of Book Worm.
