Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Ratings493
Average rating3.9
An odd book. The world 18th century Paris comes to life with vivid description of scent.
Una storia geniale, con uno dei protagonisti più negativi che abbia mai incontrato, terribile ma al tempo stesso magnifico. La storia ti cattura dalla prima all'ultima pagina con continui cambi di rotta, quando credi di aver capito il verso della storia ecco che tutto cambia fino allo splendido finale.
Assolutamente da leggere!!!
Joya literaria, la película no le hace justicia para nada.
El final se me hizo desagradable al inicio pero creo que fue el mejor que pudo tener: Es sentencioso e inesperado
Note: added for the request of a book where it is difficult to distinguish fiction from reality.
Perfume is a wonderfully perverse character study of the dichotomy between being an acutely sensual artisan and a callous sociopath. His descriptions are as vivid, ethereal, and visceral as the scents the protagonist determined to capture.
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“For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words, but they could not escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath.”
What a weird story, I loved it.
The book gripped me from start to finish. The way it's written as if someone is telling the story of the main characters life fits this odd story. It is both very detailed about the making of perfumes and engaging in the character’s views. Each part felt necessary to the whole of the story as it built up. The main character's ability is almost God like and reading about the reckoning of others that use/fight against him brought up questions of divine nature/work.
The ending is certainly odd but still enjoyable. That’s really how I felt about the whole book. I would recommend this book to others but not everyone. I think it's a little bit of an unserious book.
It's worth a read and the film is pretty good as well.
I was stunned I liked this so much. Not usually a fan of historical fiction but this was like a sucker punch to the jaw, and the ending was riveting. Wow!!!
“Human odour was nothing special. Children smelled insipid, men urinous, all sour sweat and cheese, women smelled of rancid fat and rotting fish.”
A long time ago (many moons), I worked in a well-known high street music shop. We had our fair share of “strange” customers and one in particular sprang to mind while I was reading this book. He was known as “The CD Sniffer”. He used to come in and smell the cd cases, sometimes he would lick them too, so utterly bizarre. I wonder now if he could smell every person that had touched that cd, smell their odour. (((Shudders))
Anyway, the book, loved most of it, hated some of it. Weird, revolting, deranged, stinky and so very very strange. Extra olfactory perception is my game, world domination by odour is my aim.
Did I say it was weird? Because it really really is, Just so weird.
I- this ending has me so so so confused and concerned for the author HAHAHA but it was actually really good and creative in a twisted way iykwm.
It's so so messed up but also really gripping and impossible to not read all the way through.
nice experience!!
Good book. Every aspect of it was thoroughly revolting. I did find that the descriptions of the deaths of everyone Grenouille left behind gave him a kind of mystical aura through no action of his own. He's almost like an unwitting ominous talisman. It's a good thing books cannot physically convey smells, some of the things described were truely disgusting.
3.5*
Perfume, en pocas palabras, es la historia de un hombre sin escencia que tiene un gusto profundo por las escéncias del mundo.
Este libro no fue de mis favoritos, pero eso no le quita lo bien escrito y desarrollado que estaba. Patrick Süskind nos logra llevar a la mente de Grenouille con una prosa exquisita. Cada detalle de Perfume esta bien planeado, y la historia se cierra en una muy buena manera.
Las descripciones, por otro lado, las consideraría una espada de doble filo. Estas hacen parte de la mayor parte del libro.Y aunque yo tambien fui embelesada por estas, hubo un punto donde me distrajeron y alejaron de la lectura.
Otro aspecto que no me agrado tanto del libro fue el poco enfoque en las víctimas. Para mi gusto, se sintió un poco acelerado.
En conclusión, este no es uno de los libros que me gustaria releer pero no me arrepiento de haberlo leído en un primer lugar.
A premissa deste livro acompanhou -me por anos, numa manifestação de curiosidade que perdurou até à última página. Já perdi a conta dos anos em que o queria, mas apesar de tudo, compensou ter sido empurrada pela vida até ao momento presente, em que posso contar com uma bagagem literária e de vida que me permitiram apreciar cada linha desta trama! O perfume é um misto de poesia, misticismo, bizarrices e surpresas que, consoante as suscetibilidades, poderão ser tão boas quanto más! Amei, simplesmente, a construção das personagens, as reviravoltas, as descrições que me ajudaram a visualizar a França do século XVIII, com os seus odores, as suas crises, as suas mudanças. Não é um livro muito focado na contextualização histórica do país, mas o modo como o autor brinca com as palavras, como se de uma fórmula se tratasse, faz com que esta obra ofereça um espetáculo sinestésico indescritível! Amo, amo, amo! Vale super a pena!
Pachnidło to najgłośniejsza powieść Patricka Suskinda, która zdobyła uznanie w literackim świecie.
Osadzona w XVIII - wiecznej Francji powieść to historia Jana Baptysty Grenouille'a, człowieka obdarzonego nieprawdopodobnym zmysłem powonienia. Narrację Pachnidła wyróżnia emfaza obecnego w każdej scenie zmysłu węchu Grenouille'a, a w opisach nie brak “zapachowych” szczegółów. Autor kreśli piękne obrazy zapachów codziennych przedmiotów, np. pisze o głębi i różnorodności zapachów, jakie wydaje drewno, a także o manipulacji zapachami nieobecnej wytwórcom perfum.
Autor unika literackich chwytów, by skupić się na psychologicznym aspekcie swych postaci. Niewątpliwy psychopata Grenouille jest przekonany, że jego wyjątkowy zmysł węchu wynosi go ponad zwyczajne człowieczeństwo. Wierzy, że obdarowując ludzkość najsubtelniejszy woniami, uda mu się nad nią zapanować, ale w świecie zapachów obsesyjne szuka tego jedynego, który byłby doskonałym zapachem, zapachem nad zapachem.
“Czym ma być pachnidło:
subtelność, moc, trwałość, rozmaitość oraz porażające, nieodparte piękno.”
Many things about this book has compelled me to give it a 5 star rating. It's captivating, but in a weird morbid way like the way you can't tear your eyes off something that is so so weird, out of this world, and quite often disgusting and horrifying. Trigger warnings apply at the end of this review because hoo boy did this book have a lot.
The story opens with the unwelcome and unceremonious birth of the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille in the stinkiest spot of all Paris, and indeed in all of France. As he grows, being kicked from place to place, he begins to realize that he has a truly extraordinary gift of smelling things. You'd think that he has dog-like levels of sniffing and teasing out scents, but Grenouille's talent goes far, far beyond that of any mortal creature. Soon he finds himself in the house of a parfumer where he learns the art of parfumerie, and Grenouille has found just the scent he wants to capture - that of young virgin girls.
From the blurb and my above description, it might seem like this book is clearly going to be some sordid serial killing with lots of sexual violence but - it actually isn't. Grenouille is a very strange protagonist. He's almost sympathetic in the first half of the book when everyone around him is either repulsed by him or only suffers his company for as long as they can manipulate him for their gains. While one might chalk up Grenouille's repulsiveness to the fantasy elements of the book, the fact that a lot of it is also ascribed to superstition in the plot feels like it's sending a message. What would Grenouille have turned out to be if he had been raised in a less superstitious and perhaps more loving environment?
Grenouille is quite certainly psychopathic. I know that term conjures up images of serial killers often with depraved sexual appetites and whatnot, but I mean to describe him in the sense that he has no conception of emotions, feelings, or anything that makes humans human. It's almost as if he is completely separate from the human experience and a lot of times he feels like an alien being with some resemblance to a human. That also means he does not have the same motivations and desires as humans do, including almost a complete lack of sexual interest in any way. He has a weird, almost child-like innocence for most of the book, which is honestly an extremely weird thing to say about a murderer.
The writing of this book was beautiful. I've never been one to appreciate scents in general, but this book did such an amazing and immersive job in describing the scent-scape of 18th century France, from the roiling stink of the cities to the clearer and thinner fragrance of the countryside. The plot itself was already plenty engaging but the writing was what kept my eyes glued to the page. The plot was already madness to begin with, so I guess I was surprised at how it managed to culminate in even more madness still. Yet, the ending was oddly befitting, though it was also a lot of jaw-dropping WTFery.
I would only be a little cautious of this book potentially glamourizing serial killers or psychopaths. This is not just historical fiction, but actually historical fantasy. People like Grenouille do not exist, and it would be a mistake to imagine that there is anything sympathetic about the murders that he eventually commits, nor is that remotely excusable in the real world.
TW: Body horror, infidelity, child abuse, child death, infidelity, references to incest, graphic violence, murder, animal abuse, animal death
Let me explain this.
I did not enjoy reading this book at all. I felt uncomfortable the whole time - the writing, the descriptions, the story, the characters, they all were the reason for that. I cannot rate this anything higher than this because there was not one moment when I thought that it was all right or anything that I appreciated at all in this book. I knew I wouldn't like it before reading it and I did not hope that it would prove that wrong or anything like that.
This rating does not mean that I think this book is bad, like badly written or the story is idk not well-structured or something. This is a decent book with some interesting topics/themes that some people may appreciate a lot more than me.
But I will not ever recommend this to someone else because I really don't like this book. I am glad to have finally read it and I do kind of understand why this book is such a big deal but it certainly is not for me lol
This was a highly fascinating and brilliantly composed novel. I'm a little baffled at how I can feel sorry for a character so abhorrent and detestable, someone so misaligned with my moral compass. I LOVED the writing and descriptions and thoroughly enjoyed it despite the grotesque elements that were a significant part of the plot. The ending was quite shocking, but I should have expected it.
I think it would have been more enjoyable if it had been shorter. There were lots of times I felt it dragged on a bit.
Interesting premise, but I didn't really need such in depth info about making perfume. 3 stars because I like the idea and the parts where there is actual action going on.