Hey there, coffee fans! I've got a new book to discuss with you. This one comes to us from Germany, set almost 300 years ago in Paris. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.
Perfume by Patrick Suskind is an interesting book. Honestly, I was surprised that I liked it. I prefer supernaturality in my horror, but this was something… else. The version I read had a publication date of 1986, but I was not sure if that was when the edition was published or not. The book is another translated work, this time from German.
Set in the mid 1700s, in France, Perfume details the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man born with a very strong sense of smell and no scent of his own. As previously stated, I was not sure I'd like this book, so I went in with a bit of trepidation. However, within the first twenty pages I was pleasantly horrified. Horrified by the nonchalant evil done by Grenouille's mother. Being a father, I could never imagine such treatment of a newborn. However, it set the stage for an interestingly miserable anti-hero and set the tone for the dark times of the story. This tone lasted throughout, and can be seen in numerous facets ranging from personal mistreatment, professional corruption, and faithlessness in a time when the church truly had the majority of the power in Europe.
Grenouille grew up loveless, but valued for his work ethic and talent for using his olfactory sense. Also, it seemed that nothing could kill him after he survived a terrible illness contracted in what seemed to me to be a sort of pit where they tanned leather. What made him fascinating, however, was that he never valued that which the people around him valued, which was typically money. He fought to survive out of spite, and later devised a scheme to make perfume out of human scents, which required special ingredients only gained through murder.
I will admit, I sometimes found the writing to be overly verbose. After reading Adam Nevill, I was surprised to find this to be a bad thing in this instance. Nevill's descriptions of landscape were beautiful. I found myself wishing Suskind would get to the point. The powerful parts of this story, however, were in the author's ability to deliver horrific verbs and death scenes with a nonchalant matter-of-factness.
I have always sought fiction, and the more fantastical the better. However, this book may very well have restored my faith in the realistic.
***Below is an Amazon Affiliate Link that you can use to purchase this book. I may receive a commission if you purchase through this link.
To reiterate, I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
Comments