Perfume by Patrick Süskind; Thoughts, Synopsis, and my Overall Review

First Impressions & Intro

Wow, this my first blog post so please don't mind any errors, this is kind of a test blog and I hope to post more but I'm so excited to start this blog! :))

Now on my initial thoughts, going into this book I was aware it was a horror novel, this is definitely a stretch from what I’m used to and regularly enjoy so I didn’t expect to enjoy this book as much as I’d enjoy books of other genres.

What got me to read this book was because it was quite popular and I’d heard quite a lot about it on social media, (Also, Kurt Cobain said it was his favorite book)

I hadn’t heard many negatives about this book and decided that if there were so many good reviews, why not read it myself? 

Synopsis 

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born in 17th century France and is gifted with an incredible, borderline supernatural sense of smell—the drawback is, he has no scent himself. Due to his lack of scent and combined strong sense of smell he is generally avoided by most, and avoids people himself, (due to strong foul odors emitted by most people in 17th century France) fostering a misanthropic lifestyle. Grenouille realizes the importance of scent in daily life and how scent impacts relationships with people; utilizing his gifts Grenouille is led down a rabbit hole to creating the most perfect perfume in which he can wear himself to make people desire him, this voyage in creating this scent leads him to commit various murders in which the audience follows. 

My review

Despite believing I wouldn’t enjoy this book to the fullest extent, I was pleasantly surprised when reading it by how interested I was in this book. Truly, I could not put this book down and it was finished in only two days; typically I finish a book in a week to two weeks even if its short due to studying, homework, etc. along with this, if its a book I don't particularly enjoy, I take even longer so this was a pleasant surprise.

The plot is sketched out for the reader quite early into the book, there is little to no mystery or plot twists which I tend to find common in horror books. Despite this however, I found this book to be incredibly interesting due to Suskind’s writing style; the dark themes are beautifully conveyed through the words Suskind uses. 

I find that in most of the book, Suskind writes in great detail of Grenouille’s olfactory experiences, the way in which he describes this is quite infatuating which is something I wasn’t expecting, as I find it boring when author’s tend to dwell on sensory experiences for too long. Despite this, I feel as though Suskind’s description of Grenouille’s experience is much needed for this book as it helps the reader to understand the sickening mind of our protagonist. 

Drawbacks to this however, is that, for many, long descriptions and detailed paragraphs of sensory experiences can tend to be boring. Personally, I feel the same way. For me, however, this book seemed to be an exception due to Suskind’s writing style but I can see that for many, this would still be off-putting. 

Overall, I think this book was a great and super interesting read. The greatest theme I could pull from this was identity as Grenouille is essentially seeking for his signature scent, giving him a place in society. I think if dark themes, and the beautiful art of language interests you, then this book would be a wonderful read. 

Favorite Quote(s)

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. Together with breath it entered human beings, who could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. (155 Süskind)

Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it. (82 Süskind)