Ganz anders als erwartet, ist es ein Kriminalroman aber auch wieder nicht. Vor allem am Ende gab es ein paar völlig unerwartete Plot-Twists. Und obwohl die Geschichte sehr gemächlich startet, ist es nie langweilig. Der Schreibstil ist einfach toll! ( )

Beautiful writing, a book filled with scents and absurdity. Perfume was recommended to me by my literature professor and I enjoyed the hell out of this book. From beginning to end the book gripped my attention. Definitely recommend. ( )

Fascinating but unpleasant. It's unusual to have a book in which the protagonist is a thoroughly unlikeable villain with no redeeming qualities. ( )

Our sense of smell and how it can trigger emotional feelings and memories is used in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind as we read about Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an unloved orphan in 18th century France who is born with an exceptional sense of smell but without a personal scent of his own. This young orphan exhibits all the characteristics of a psychopath as he has no sense of empathy toward people or animals and only cares about how he can use them to his advantage.

After a very difficult young life, he is able to talk his way into becoming apprenticed to one of Paris’ successful perfumers but in his search for new smells he encounters a young girl with a wondrous personal scent. He murders her simply to have access to that scent. Eventually he leaves Paris in an attempt to learn new techniques so that he can preserve an even wider range of odors. Although he becomes increasingly disgusted with people and spends some time living as a hermit, he soon heads to the south of France and works for a perfumer there. He also finds another young girl whose scent makes him believe that he can develop a perfume that would hypnotize people into thinking the wearer is god-like. In his quest for developing this perfume he murders more young women in order to use their body parts to evolve the fragrance that he is working on.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a gruesome, fantasy tale in which the author blends both factual information and fairy-tale story telling about a murderer and his obsessive quest for a perfect perfume. I found the information and facts about the manufacture of perfume to be very interesting but, this was a difficult book to enjoy due to it’s dark themes. However, the author gives us well written prose that elevates the story and makes us ponder upon the importance of fragrance. ( )

I liked the first 100 or so pages, basically up until he fucks off into the mountains, then it turned dull. I also found the writing style overly wordy while not actually saying anything or moving the plot forward. ( )

I'm not even done and I have to say that I am not sure why this get's so much acclaim its very over done in places missing color in others, and full of entirely non pertinent moments. Then we get to the fact that the main character is a mentally disabled person essentially and the entire novel villainizes this character. Villainizes him long before any reason to. Why this has the critical acclaim that it does is beyond me. I wish I had my time back. ( )

Not really a fan. The book is good enough, but the wording and structure are not terribly important. The real strength is the continued use of smell, obviously.

Still, reading it in Paris was a brilliant idea... ( )

Feels like a Grimm's fairy tale updated with bland YA-novel prose. The hero's actions seem to be dictated by what would make for a dramatic fable rather than any real motivations. Needs more comedy. ( )

I don't love dark and disturbing books but this WAS compelling. ( )

the most unusual book one ever reads. Start sniffing! Excellent translation from the German original (publ. 1985) ( )

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille or Grenouille is born without a scent. He is also an orphan with an incredible sense of smell. Unfortunately he is consistently under the care of the most apathetic people imaginable. He survives every bullshit they throw at him to become a master perfumer and ultimately a serial killer. This is literally the entire rundown of the book. There are endless details about the process of making various perfumes etc., descriptions of every single scent he comes across, and the horrible people he encounters but its mainly about his ascent into crafting the perfect perfume out of his victims. The pacing is clunky and leaves a lot to be desired. Most of the characters only exist to propel Grenouille's story forward and not by much. Grenouille is a empty husk of an individual devoid of any real ambitions outside of making the ultimate scent. It drags on for far too long, especially during "suspenseful" moments of the story, which are not suspenseful at all. Because they offer no real consequences. Towards the ending of the book the author forgets he did not paint Grenouille in any sympathetic light but in the most absurd manner possible, undercutting any point being made. Was there even a point? ( )

I was not impressed with this book. I think something was lost in the translation into English. It just felt very odd and stilted to me. Of course, I pushed through and kept reading until the end. Just a very, very odd book to me.

What a book! I read it once, more than a decade ago, but it definitely stayed with me. The protagonist is appalling but his quest to find the perfect perfume is disturbingly overwhelming.
A great tribute to the sense of smell. ( )

This was one of the most clever tales I've had the fortune of reading - but also one of the most contrived.
From the very beginning, the author makes it clear that Grenouille, the antagonist, is nothing to root for - he has no semblance of a conscience, for starters. And while you want to explore such an original character further (a person with a supernatural sense of smell), his character development is diluted in favor of showing the reader how perfumes are made, imitated, and even reverse-engineered - which tends to get on your nerves after a while.
If you can stand a linear narrative, and don't mind reading up on a completely new subject (because let's be honest - who has ever read up on how, exactly, the smell of jasmine flowers is imbibed through oils?), then this book is a must read. The plot idea alone is worthy of praise - the plot is just icing on the cake. ( )

I actually saw the movie first, a few years ago, and loved it enough to get the book! "Perfume" is a banned book. The narrative is uncomfortably intimate and psychologically unnerving. Like "American Psycho", or "We Need to Talk About Kevin", you witness a killer evolve rather than emerge.

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born in a filthy, fish stall, to a mother who had planned to drown him immediately. She was caught and executed, but Grenouille was "an abomination from the start." He exudes no scent of his own, a trait that those around him notice unconsciously. It terrifies even himself. However, he has the most powerful olfactory abilities to ever exist. He can identify smells that have no name. As such he can wander in the dark, exhibit seemingly prophetic abilities but always wanting more.

One night he smells a scent so unique, that it categorizes all others. It is a 14 year old girl whom he immediately strangles so as "not to lose a trace of her scent." It is not sexual, Grenouille has no need for that. But this act unlocks Grenouille as a "God" of scent. For he realizes that he can control the actions of others through scent, and harness the power of these "rare flowers." From others he learns how to make perfume, transforming and camouflaging himself. Eventually he begins his pursuit to "capture" the most celestial scent, Laure Richis, a marquis' daughter. But such a relentlessly greedy ambition can only end in the most horrific way.

Grenouille as he is, cannot exist in our world. He can only exist in a bygone era of absolutes. 18th century France is the best setting for this. The Esprit of the times, the primary sources describing the perfume industry and the cosmopolitan access to florals and spices previously unknown. A thoroughly dark, unsettling and enthralling read. ( )

It all started so well as well! I think most of this book is very easy to read and interesting as well as intriguing.

However, just a last section doesn’t seem to seems like a shame to tie up the story line. Naturally, some of this is very Macabre. Enjoyable for those with a taste for amusing antiheroes. Who’s foul tastes become somewhat compelling and intriguing. ( )

Definitely a novel novel, unlike one I’ve ever read before. Very interesting in its plot, a wide collection of characters and an eye catching setting. I kept thinking how interesting a movie it would be, although almost impossible to pull off visually. Definitely enjoyable. ( )

parts of this i enjoyed so much on a sentence level that i was actively happy-stimming while listening at work

This book is beautifully written. I don't know what I expected as the plot, but this surprised at numerous points in the story. Awesome! ( )

On the surface, the book is about one Jean-Baptiste Grenouille - his birth, life, self-obsession, and death. The comparison to a tick is inspired, and the language of the book is lyrical. The language is visual.

Jean-Baptiste should have died at birth but didn't. He should have died when a child but didn't. Blessed with an extraordinary sense of smell and an obsession with it and cursed with no body odor, he went on to become a perfumer.

His obsession with creating perfume and capturing the scent from the body of young women led him to murder. His perfumes affected people, sending them into an orgy at one point.

Does this sound ridiculous? Think of how many political leaders use oratory to sway audiences, and you will look at this book from a new perspective.

The book is magnificent at many levels, and disturbing. ( )

I should have liked this way more than I did... It seems almost made for me.

I love perfume. Like, I own probably $1,000 worth of high end perfumes. The moment I get a vaccine, I'm wearing that shit out to every horrid first date I can in rapturous glee. My sense of smell is the strongest of them all for me. I smell everything. My roommates make me smell their milk, and god damn, I can tell it's bad days before them. I'm willing to beg a perfumer to have me try my lot in discerning.

But... I did not love this book. If I had to give you a vibe of what this novel offers, I'd place this solidly in the 1980s-Gothic milieu it came from. You've got an 18th century European setting, an almost vampiric protagonist, and the ever-present, sexy sexy sense of smell. Everything is vaguely supernatural, but solidly couched in the oh-so-decadent 18th century. Granted, Süskind tries to write about how terrible that century was for people, how hard and tireless and bleak it was. But it's like Anne Rice trying to describe a man popping a squat. It ain't coming out any other way than pure gold.

Grenouille (frog! get it?) is first and foremost, a psychopath. It's potentially fascinating in a psychological way, except it's not much explored, and really, what is there to say about a psychopath? They care for no one, not even themselves. It's so, so dull. Grenouille does not change as a character, as a man. He can't. His psychopathy renders him stilted; he is unerring in all goals, unchanging in all ways. Shoot me already.

Bits of this were really great. I loved the ending to the murder drama: It was deliciously sickening. I liked the commentary of human sexuality, though it bordered on the pedophilic in more ways than made me comfortable. I think if I had read this a few years ago, I'd have gone pretty apeshit over it. Maybe my tastes have changed, maybe the difficult times I've been going through has made reading fiction pretty passe to me. Time will only tell.

Perfume is solid, if a bit boring. I do implore you to read about the weirdest virgin to ever grace the page. ( )

Romanen utspelar sig i 1700-talets Frankrike. Boken handlar om parfymören Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Han är en isolerad människa på grund av den känsla av obehag han väcker eftersom han saknar kroppslukt, men han själv utvecklar ett särdeles luktsinne och blir besatt av dofter. För att skapa parfymer mördar han unga flickor för att extrahera deras kroppsdofter. Intrigen bygger på François Rabelais Gargantua och Pantagruel och handlar ytterst om mänsklig moral och identitet

Ok that is definitely one of the best last sentences I have ever read. ( )

man i hate to admit it but honestly? this book slapped. the idea of a person using their sense of smell as their main sense is so good. im a lil mad. ( )

i liked the end, but it's hard for me to really like a book that has absolutely no redeeming characters. ( )