Perfume by John E. Woods, Patrick Suskind (2001)

Perfume the only novel of Patrick Suskind's available in an English translation is a perennially decent seller. If you see it on the shelf today, it's packaged as a slick looking trade paperback (that's the bigger paperback that usually costs between twelve and sixteen dollars), which for all purposes looks like a good novel. If my memory serves me right there are even impressive sounding blurbs telling the potential reader it's a good novel. I didn't read the nice looking version of the novel, I read the mass market (that's the little paperback you find in grocery stores) version from the...

EDITOR'S NOTE: I wrote this review back when I still trying to decide whether to approach a book review with gut feeling or discussing the plot itself. Unfortunately, I tipped too far in the latter direction, and give away almost everything in the book. Unless of course you love spoilers, please do not read this until you've read the book. Like most babies smell like butter His smell smelled like no other He was born scentless and senseless He was born a scentless apprentice Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born on one of the smelliest days of the year in the downtrodden section of 18th century...

I have a fairly strong sense of smell, so I can kind of relate to Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the bizzarely scentless anti-hero with an incomparable sense of smell in Patrick Suskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. And you have to give Suskind and his translator, John E. Woods, credit: capturing the essence of scent and trying to describe it is no easy task --- and that world of smell plays such a huge part in this book that it's practically a whole other character on its own. Set in the stench-filled slums of 18th century Paris, we bear witness to the birth of Grenouille, a strange little..

My mom handed me a copy of this 1986 first time novel by Patrick Suskind and told me that I should read it. It took me years to actually sit down and do more than start on it. But now that I have finally finished the book, I find that I can't get the Suskind's amazing descriptions out of my head. Perfume tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, from his childhood to his death. Grenouille was born in Paris and left to die by his mother. His cries alerted surrounding adults, and while his mother was carried off to be beheaded, the infant Grenouille was given to the church to care for, as...