Bookish Tuesdays - Book Review - Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Book Review - Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Published -  1985 by Diogenes Verlag A G, Zurich (first published)

Rating- 3/5

Summary -  Source: Book's back cover

'In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and if his name has been forgotten today, it is certainly no because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance, misanthropy, immorality, or, more succinctly, wickedness, but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent...' 

Image Source: Amazon.co.uk

My thoughts on the book...

I was prepared to read a very disturbing, sick, crazy, violent story since the book stated ‘Perfume – A Story of a Murderer.’ But I was surprised how little focus was on the ‘murders’ and more on Grenouille’s journey from the day he was born. Bizarre, unique, and interesting are three words that describes this interesting book.

It was boring in parts, especially when the writer went on and on describing a single moment. So I was forced to skim through the pages at some places, as I wanted the story to move forward instead of being stuck reading 3-4 pages about a particular situation. 

There are few lines, which I loved. It goes as:

‘For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their earns 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 want 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. He who ruled scent rules the hearts of men. ’

How true, profound and beautiful! :)