by The Ghosty Gal

Created on: December 11, 2006   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

Perfume by Patrick Suskind.

Set in eighteenth-century France, Suskind's novel tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with a supernatural sense of smell and the complete absence of any odor of his own. The narrative style of Perfume is distinguished by its emphasis on smell, in which every scene is recounted, via Grenouille's nose, through the layered complexity of its olfactory detail. Suskind paints a series of beautifully elaborate pictures of everyday objects ( such as the depth and variety of aromas emitted by wood) and of the manipulation of smell by eighteenth-century perfumery. What could become just a literary gimmick is prevented from being such by a focus on the psychology of the character. A veritable psychopath, Grenouille is convinced that his acute sense of smell elevates him above ordinary humanity. He conceives a fantasy of himself as the capricious ruler of men, bestowing upon the masses the most delicate of fragrances, before surrendering to his own gratification. However, in a world constructed of scents, Grenouille becomes obsessed with his own lack of odor, since this effectively renders him a cipher, able to discern the substance of everything but lacking a substance of his own. Intent on creating a cent for himself, Grenouille embarks on the murderous process of capturing the most beautiful human scents: those of "ripe" young women. But even the most exquisite aroma can only mask his essential odorlessness and his consequent insignificance within a fragrance universe.

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