Perfume Book Review

Patrick Suskind’s novel, Perfume, tells the story of an unusual murderer, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Born amidst the stench of 18th century Paris and left to die surrounded by sweltering heat and rotting fish, baby Jean-Baptiste Grenouille possesses an intense will to survive. Equal in intensity to his desire for survival is his longing to possess all scents. From the sharp bouquet of sweat to the tender fragrance of flowers, he is greedy for it all; for, lacking an aroma of his own, Grenouille exhibits a profound olfactory gift—the supreme ability to discern the absolute essence of all which he encounters, breaking everything down to its purist scent. It is in this way that Grenouille is able to experience the world and his greed grows with each new scent he discovers.

Grenouille’s olfactory talents are as limitless as his hunger and he sets out collecting scents, storing each one in his mind where he mixes and remixes them into the most delightful of perfumes. But the young man’s passion is ravenous, and on the evening Grenouille catches a whiff of the most delicious fragrance he has ever encountered he is compelled to follow that divine ribbon of scent which leads him to a surprising source—a beautiful young girl. The desire to capture her scent is overwhelming and he is continuously haunted by that insatiable need to possess her fragrance leading him not only to become a master perfumer, but also to become a vicious murderer, as well.

Perfume is a brilliant novel which speaks to the reader on a multitude of levels, touching on what it means to be human and the frailties that are inherent in such a precarious condition. It is a novel filled with beauty and a sense of rapture, but there is also something darker there, which speaks to the power of greed and consumption, and it subtly unfolds as Grenouille, who is both outcast and genius, walks the fine line between the purest of ecstasies and the sweet-sharp pain of a voracious desire.

Grenouille is a compelling character—the perfect monster whose peculiar gifts make him a creature with the ability to inspire both awe and fear—and the reader is swept along, sharing in both his longing and his disdain for a world in which he does not belong. Grenouille’s lack of a personal aroma adds to his portrayal as an almost otherworldly creature, weaving in and out of humanity at will, pretending to be fully human for a while before disappearing again. Grenouille is not the only monster in the story, however, and in passages which are often darkly comic Suskind offers a glimpse of the monstrous in us all.

Finally, Perfume can be read as a celebration of what is possibly the most overlooked of our senses, and in it Suskind reminds the reader of the peculiar relation between smell and memory, fragrance and desire. Just as Grenouille’s ability to distinguish individual scents becomes both the source of his magnificent pleasure and his terrible longing, anyone who has ever felt the sting of desire brought on by a sudden whisper of scent will revel in the recognition of this strange bond.