At times, I couldn’t really believe what I was reading, especially in the final section of the novel. Until he murders a young girl because she possesses a unique scent that intrigues him.Īs the book goes on, Grenouille becomes increasingly violent as he seeks to preserve the scents that he finds most captivating (usually those of young girls) and the whole book is actually rather absurd. Some of the sections in these opening chapters are borderline disgusting, as I’d expect from a book centred on the scents of eighteenth-century Paris, but most of it is rather tame. This first section is about Grenouille discovering the world around him and the various scents of the city in which he lives and works. As he grows up, Grenouille is a strange child but his unique ability allows him to be apprenticed to a local tanner and it gives him an edge over the other apprentices. No, Süskind lets you know from the very beginning that this story is going to deal with darker subjects, albeit with touches of the fantastical thrown in. When a book starts like this, you know that this isn’t going to be a light, happy tale. She’s tried for infanticide, executed, and Grenouille is fostered.

Immediately after his birth, which happens in a public market, his mother leaves him to die just as she did with her previous four children. It’s split into four sections, each dealing with a different period in Grenouille’s life.įrom the very first chapter, which details Grenouille’s birth, the book is dark and gruesome. Perfume (German: Das Parfum) is a historical fantasy novel set in eighteenth-century France and it charts the life of a man, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who was born with an exceptional sense of smell.

I honestly tried to make this review spoiler-free but I couldn’t so here is your warning: this review contains spoilers. Oh, what a strange, strange book this was. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”-the scent of a beautiful young virgin. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odours of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. Summary: In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift: an absolute sense of smell. Genre: Historical fiction / Fantasy / Mystery

Perfume by Patrick Süskind