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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
It took me ages to read this but actually the German wasnt too bad. God what a crazy book though. I really enjoyed it despite the gore and genuine digustingness of it. I think it was really well captured the unhumanness of our little Zweck but equally how weirdly human it was for him to to be so upset with his lack of smell (perhaps an analogy for something else) that he hid in a hole in a cave for 7 years.
Thought the build up to the pre end was really good and then the actual end as absurd and disturbing as the rest of the story builds it up to be.
Very cool, definitely need to read more into this style and why it came about haha.
"Wenn man dieses Parfüm in einem dunklen Raum gerochen hätten, so hätte man geglaubt, es stehe da ein zweiter Mensch."
Thought the build up to the pre end was really good and then the actual end as absurd and disturbing as the rest of the story builds it up to be.
Very cool, definitely need to read more into this style and why it came about haha.
"Wenn man dieses Parfüm in einem dunklen Raum gerochen hätten, so hätte man geglaubt, es stehe da ein zweiter Mensch."
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Very easy to read, if uncomfortable at times. Some nice touches of humour. Perhaps it just seems to run out of steam a bit at the end. Part 4 wraps up a bit too quickly.
dark
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Favorite book
3.5
It started out really strong with the clever descriptions of cities from an olfactory perspective, and the villain’s Dickensian childhood. His mother delivers him in a pile of fish guts above a mass grave. This was the fifth time she had welcomed a new life in that very place, known as the most putrid spot in the kingdom, where:
“the bloody meat that had emerged had not differed greatly from the fish guts that lay there already, nor had lived much longer, and by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away and carted off to the graveyard or down to the river.”
Her story ends there. She is spotted abandoning the child, confesses to multiple counts of infanticide, and is promptly beheaded.
The boy is christened Grenouille (Frog) then placed with a wet nurse who can only endure him for a few weeks and leaves him with a priest. The priest, in turn, finds lodging for him with a Mme Gaillard, where in the course of his childhood he survives among other hardships:
“measles, dysentery, chicken pox, cholera, a twenty-foot fall into a well, and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest.
Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again.”
When he turns eight Mme Gaillard is relieved of her obligation and turns the child over to a tanner, believing that:
“Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal’s tannery. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things.”
There he slept on a dirt floor in a locked closet and spent his days learning skills like chopping wood, scraping meat from rotting hides, mixing poisonous fluids and dyes, and hauling hundreds of buckets of water.
That part of the novel was good fun. The buildup was more compelling than the meat of the story itself. The second half, where the action ramps up—the murders and his sense of smell evolving from extraordinary to absurd—lost some steam. Still, it’s a fairly quick read and an original and entertaining tale,
It started out really strong with the clever descriptions of cities from an olfactory perspective, and the villain’s Dickensian childhood. His mother delivers him in a pile of fish guts above a mass grave. This was the fifth time she had welcomed a new life in that very place, known as the most putrid spot in the kingdom, where:
“the bloody meat that had emerged had not differed greatly from the fish guts that lay there already, nor had lived much longer, and by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away and carted off to the graveyard or down to the river.”
Her story ends there. She is spotted abandoning the child, confesses to multiple counts of infanticide, and is promptly beheaded.
The boy is christened Grenouille (Frog) then placed with a wet nurse who can only endure him for a few weeks and leaves him with a priest. The priest, in turn, finds lodging for him with a Mme Gaillard, where in the course of his childhood he survives among other hardships:
“measles, dysentery, chicken pox, cholera, a twenty-foot fall into a well, and a scalding with boiling water poured over his chest.
Whoever has survived his own birth in a garbage can is not so easily shoved back out of this world again.”
When he turns eight Mme Gaillard is relieved of her obligation and turns the child over to a tanner, believing that:
“Grenouille would have no chance of survival in Grimal’s tannery. But she was not a woman who bothered herself about such things.”
There he slept on a dirt floor in a locked closet and spent his days learning skills like chopping wood, scraping meat from rotting hides, mixing poisonous fluids and dyes, and hauling hundreds of buckets of water.
That part of the novel was good fun. The buildup was more compelling than the meat of the story itself. The second half, where the action ramps up—the murders and his sense of smell evolving from extraordinary to absurd—lost some steam. Still, it’s a fairly quick read and an original and entertaining tale,
dark
informative
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
No
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Great book. I always wanted to read it after seeing the movie as I knew with the movie being decent, I could FEEL the book would be so much better. It was. It’s creepy, sad, exciting and loving, crammed together into a sweet little book about adoration.