Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Suskind

Posted : 9 months ago at Feb 25 23:25

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer does the seemingly impossible: it writes in ecstatic prose the hardest sense to capture, scent. That alone should qualify it for a “Great Books” list, but the compulsive readability and wonderful control over language mark for greatness just as much. There’s just one tiny problem…the subject matter is darker than dark. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is the latest newborn in a long-line of newborns for his mother, and she assumes that he, like the rest, is going to be a still-born or semi-still-born. Naturally, when he cries and everyone discovers that the baby is alive, she is killed. Thus begins the succession of pitch-black humor, pathos, and fairy-tale-that-Grimm’s-forgot nature of the storyline. Grenouille is born with a scent, but is a naturally gi...Read more