It’s just one of those books that every serious reader should pick up. It subverts your expectations and manages to fascinate you whether you want it to or not. We see what he’s thinking as he carries out his murders and while his own reasoning may make sense to us, it’s still not something that we can exactly relate to.īut that’s part of the beauty of this book. He’s just a bad guy, and he could never have been anything else after the way that he entered the world.

Suskinds beautifully crafted narrative excites the imagination and expands the readers senses - especially that least appreciated of faculties, the olfactory. You could hardly call him relatable, and he’s not even an antihero – the bad guy you love to hate. First and foremost, German author Patrick Suskinds novel, 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer,' is a celebration of the written word, and an affirmation of good popular literature. It opens up all sorts of interesting questions, and it was particularly fascinating to see how Suskind was able to re-imagine the world to describe its smells from his protagonist’s point of view.Īs for the protagonist himself – well, he’s an interesting chap. When the labor pains began, Grenouilles mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers, scaling whiting that she had just gutted. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard, squeezing its putrefying vapor, a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn, out into the nearby alleys.

But really, that doesn’t matter – it’s a pleasure to read from start to finish, and once you get into the story you’ll find it hard to put down.įrom a plot point of view, it’s “the story of a murderer”, a man who has a superb sense of smell but no physical scent of his own. It was one of the hottest days of the year.

It’s a long old read that often uses complex language, but it also has the feel of a much older book and so that could well be why. Perfume is hailed as something as a masterpiece, and I can kind of see why.

Perfume suskind review