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A review by tits_mcgee
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Patrick Süskind: a name synonymous with mystery among the literary crowd; a reclusive man, one who rejects any kind of literary award and declines interviews. Get the feeling this guy’s an eccentric? Yeah, me too, and the feeling only amplifies when you read his novel: Perfume (Das Parfum).
German born, Patrick comes from a family of literary talent. His educaational background is in medieval and modern history which he studied in the early-mid 70’s before breaking off his studies to pursue a career in writing. He relocated to Paris, and made his first claim to success with The Double Bass in 1981, with his best selling novel Perfume being published just four years later. He’s yet to write another novel, which serves the aura of mysteriousness in a way I find satisfyingly apt, as though he stepped out of the shadows to show us some particular thing before slipping back to the abyss from whence he came. Okay, a bit dramatic perhaps, but you can’t blame me, I am merely a victim of Süskind’s seductive voodoo. Like the protagonist (and I use that word lightly) in Perfume, Süskind has become a godlike entity.
Perfume is a truly unique book, one that will stay in my memory banks for as long as Pigs remain flightless. Its darkly satirical cruelty makes American Psycho look like a children’s book. I bloody love how dark and strange it gets; let its weird evil spirit infect me, let my dreams be haunted by Jean-Baptise Grenouille’s perversions and cruelty, because I’m addicted to the dark and creepy and Süskind can do such a thing in a way that is wholly tasteful and complex, like Camille Saint-Saens Danse Macabre, or Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.
His evocative prose creates a reading experience that combines the grotesque with the majestic. Süskind pulled me into his rich atmospheric settings, conjured smells and sights and feelings on a level that most authors can only dream of conjuring. He has a way of tapping into my very soul, mesmerising me with a story so bizarre, so surreal and yet it speaks of very real, very human experiences, aspects of our nature that perhaps we hide away from ourselves like our perpetual struggle with identity and place, how much power and control we truly have in a world that sees us as a status or a burden, and dare I say it, what it means to be human.
Jean-Baptise Grenouille . . . our hero who came from zero, a classic bildungsroman tale with a dark, evil backbone. Grenouille is a conduit, initially for observations of societal rejection, a conduit for our inane resentment towards people we don’t understand, but eventually he transforms into a conduit for how we value people with status and renown, and for how much power we give to those in possession of such things. A hero then not by classic definition but by manner of how his cruel achievements teach us of ourselves, teach us of our own cruelty and of our weakness.
A book that everyone should read, one that I believe will go down in history as the literary equivalent of Kurt Cobain – he came, he saw, he blew our minds away and left a legacy of mystery and intrigue.
German born, Patrick comes from a family of literary talent. His educaational background is in medieval and modern history which he studied in the early-mid 70’s before breaking off his studies to pursue a career in writing. He relocated to Paris, and made his first claim to success with The Double Bass in 1981, with his best selling novel Perfume being published just four years later. He’s yet to write another novel, which serves the aura of mysteriousness in a way I find satisfyingly apt, as though he stepped out of the shadows to show us some particular thing before slipping back to the abyss from whence he came. Okay, a bit dramatic perhaps, but you can’t blame me, I am merely a victim of Süskind’s seductive voodoo. Like the protagonist (and I use that word lightly) in Perfume, Süskind has become a godlike entity.
Perfume is a truly unique book, one that will stay in my memory banks for as long as Pigs remain flightless. Its darkly satirical cruelty makes American Psycho look like a children’s book. I bloody love how dark and strange it gets; let its weird evil spirit infect me, let my dreams be haunted by Jean-Baptise Grenouille’s perversions and cruelty, because I’m addicted to the dark and creepy and Süskind can do such a thing in a way that is wholly tasteful and complex, like Camille Saint-Saens Danse Macabre, or Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.
His evocative prose creates a reading experience that combines the grotesque with the majestic. Süskind pulled me into his rich atmospheric settings, conjured smells and sights and feelings on a level that most authors can only dream of conjuring. He has a way of tapping into my very soul, mesmerising me with a story so bizarre, so surreal and yet it speaks of very real, very human experiences, aspects of our nature that perhaps we hide away from ourselves like our perpetual struggle with identity and place, how much power and control we truly have in a world that sees us as a status or a burden, and dare I say it, what it means to be human.
Jean-Baptise Grenouille . . . our hero who came from zero, a classic bildungsroman tale with a dark, evil backbone. Grenouille is a conduit, initially for observations of societal rejection, a conduit for our inane resentment towards people we don’t understand, but eventually he transforms into a conduit for how we value people with status and renown, and for how much power we give to those in possession of such things. A hero then not by classic definition but by manner of how his cruel achievements teach us of ourselves, teach us of our own cruelty and of our weakness.
A book that everyone should read, one that I believe will go down in history as the literary equivalent of Kurt Cobain – he came, he saw, he blew our minds away and left a legacy of mystery and intrigue.