Product Description
The year is 1738; the place, Paris. A baby is born under a fish-monger’s bloody table in a marketplace, and abandoned. Orphaned, passed over to the monks as a charity case, already there is something in the aura of the tiny infant that is unsettling. No one will look after him; he is somehow too demanding, and, even more disturbing, something is missing: as his wet nurse tries to explain, he doesn’t smell the way a baby should smell; indeed, he has no scent at all.

Slowly, as we watch Jean-Baptiste Grenouille cling stubbornly to life, we begin to realize that a monster is growing before our eyes. With mounting unease, yet hypnotized, we see him explore his powers and their effect on the world around him. For this dark and sinister boy who has no smell himself possesses an absolute sense of smell, and with it he can read the world to discover the hidden truths that elude ordinary men. He can smell the very composition of objects, and their history, and where they have been, he has no need of the light, and darkness is not dark to him, because nothing can mask the odors of the universe.

As he leaves childhood behind and comes to understand his terrible uniqueness, his obsession becomes the quest to identify, and then to isolate, the most perfect scent of all, the scent of life itself.

At first, he hones his powers, learning the ancient arts of perfume-making until the exquisite fragrances he creates are the rage of Paris, and indeed Europe. Then, secure in his mastery of these means to an end, he withdraws into a strange and agonized solitude, waiting, dreaming, until the morning when he wakes, ready to embark on his monstrous quest: to find and extract from the most perfect living creatures—the most beautiful young virgins in the land— that ultimate perfume which alone can make him, too, fully human. As his trail leads him, at an ever-quickening pace, from his savage exile to the heart of the country and then back to Paris, we are caught up in a rising storm of terror and mortal sensual conquest until the frenzy of his final triumph explodes in all its horrifying consequences.

Told with dazzling narrative brilliance and the haunting power of a grown-up fairy tale, Perfume is one of the most remarkable novels of the last fifty years.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 411 reviews)

Best book ever! by Rachel A. Deatherage (Milford, OH USA)

4 Stars
June 01, 2009
arrived in a timely fashion, even though I had the lowest shipping possible. the cover was damaged worse than the description lead on to, but because the book is so awesome, it doesn't make that much of a difference.

Much better than the film by Spencer (albuquerque, NM)

4 Stars
April 19, 2009
I decided to purchase this book after seeing the film. The film left alot of questions unanswered. I was very satisfied when finishing the book. It often reads like a piece of classic literature, albeit one written for a teen. At times the modernity of the prose can break the ambience created for the setting, but while jarring at first, it becomes a non-issue as the book progresses. I highly recommend this book, especially if you were a fan of the film.

Strange yet wonderful by Not Miss Havisham

4 Stars
April 16, 2009
First recommended to me in 1990 by my German teacher, Mr Kuipers, but never read until now. Recounting the story has been done plenty, so here a focus on my personal response to this tale of the murderer/gatherer of perfect scents:
1. The narrative is exquisitely written, the vocabulary beautifully accurate and detailed
2. It's difficult to stop reading because the narrative is gripping
3. A very unusual tale of discovery into the olfactory world, a world of which most people aren't that acutely aware, if at all. Yet the novel seems to suggest a human's scent is nearly synonymous with the state and nature of the soul, hence Grenouille's absence of scent.
4. Puzzlement to work out what the author was trying to convey. Probably because there was a plethora of messages. It was obvious there were messages but what they were I struggled to unravel, initially, but then there was the satisfaction of knowing I 'got' at least some its significance. It seemed quite existentialist in some ways, although that stream of thought came much later of course. There seemed to be some pervasion of pre-determined character, one is what one is and can't help how one is. Fate definitely spun a thread throughout the narrative. It explored human nature, its follies and cruelties in quite some detail. The way characters rationalise their actions rendered scope for thought too.
5. A rare look into the mind of a completely off-the-wall character, different to anything or anyone encountered previously
6. Maybe it is a mirror? Maybe in some way we all have a Grenouille inside of us, a hideous creature, who would go to extreme lengths to satisfy a passion, were it not for the tempering influence of our morality, something lacking with our protagonist (either due to inborn inclination or lack of teaching, being rejected everywhere all his life)
7. Certainly worth reading, just for the unique experience.

"I Thank You, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, for Being What You Are!" by R. M. Fisher (New Zealand = Middle Earth!)

5 Stars
February 07, 2009
There are so many reviews for Patrick Suskind's unique novel already, but I can't help but add my two cents. I found "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" utterly engrossing, and though it's certainly not for everyone, it still has my recommendation. "Perfume" actually doesn't take that long to read - it is a slender volume, the chapters are short, and the font is reasonably large. I had it read in a weekend (though admittedly, everything else had to go on hold!) So for anyone who is hard-pressed for time, but still looking for an intelligent, thought-provoking book that won't require hours of reading, then I suggest "Perfume."

The premise cannot help but intrigue you: an orphan boy left for dead by his mother is shipped off to a variety of orphanages and midwives. But no one wants him, because as one such woman tries to explain to a confused priest: the baby has no scent of his own. Yet as we soon find out, the child - Jean-Baptiste Grenouille - possesses a superhuman sense of smell. He can sniff out the metallic scent of concealed coins. He can tell what milk comes from what cow. He knows who is approaching and when they'll arrive, simply because he can smell them coming. And his gift goes even further than this. Not only can he recall every fragrance that he's ever smelt, but he can blend and combine different scents in his memory in order to create a brand new odour. I found myself quite envious of such a talent!

But as the opening sentence makes abundantly clear, Grenouille is: "a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages." Grenouille is a sociopath, but though he possesses traits (such as anti-social tendencies, egotism, and a lack of empathy) that are usual in a being that seems to be born without a conscience and raised without experiencing love, Grenounille still reads differently from any other such character that I've come across in literature. He is not a sexual deviant, he's not particularly manipulative, he kills, but gets no sadistic pleasure from it, and (despite his self-love) he does not have grandiose plans for wealth, world domination or manipulative control over other human beings.

Instead, he's driven by his desire to claim a human scent of his own (he is haunted by the fact that he's entirely scentless), to find some sort of meaning in a world he knows he does not really belong to, and so somehow become human, even as he scorns humankind in general. And there is one scent above all that he finds intoxicating: even though the book never *specifically* states what it is (even though the blurb unfortunately does, and so I'll allow myself to repeat it here), it is the scent of innocence. Naturally, the only way to seize this scent for himself is to resort to murder (again, not a spoiler: the word "murderer" is in the title).

Such hopeless and self-defeating characters can provide an unsettling mirror for our own lives, if only because they possess such a warped view of love, hate, human relationships and the concepts of life and God. There is an underlying theme of despair, of hopelessness in these pages, and not just in the life of the sociopath. Every other character of significance that touches Grenouille's life is striving for a particular goal; only have it torn cruelly away again. It is a story about perpetual longing - either for material or spiritual wealth - and never achieving it; it fact, never even fully understanding what one is longing for.

Along with the general atmosphere of filth and stench: "people stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, form their bellies, that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk..." there is this definite sense of drudgery and futility to life, broken only by the transient fragrance of Grenounille's miraculous perfume. It reminded me (certainly not in genre, but definitely in reading experience) of Donna Jo Napoli's Breath another book that had such a vivid atmosphere of death and decay that it made me want to go outside afterwards and take some deep breaths of fresh, clean air. Hopefully, this won't put you off reading it, but suffice to say, this obviously isn't a book to be *enjoyed* as such, only experienced.

Suskind devotes pages to describing the nuances of scents (something that is *much* more interesting than it sounds), and often I found myself screwing up my nose or taking deep breaths in response to what I was reading. Although this isn't an historical novel, it does create a vivid portrait of 18th century France in the midst of the Enlightenment, and Suskind has clearly done his homework when it comes to the science of perfumery.

Because this was originally a German manuscript, perhaps some of the language is lost in translation. Often the self-monologues of some characters (never Grenounille, but sometimes his first master Baldini) can stretch on for longer than necessary, and certain words and phrases are repeated unnecessarily (though I suppose there are only so many synonyms for "scent"). Yet these are minor complaints - though it's certainly not for everyone, I would recommend it for anyone in search of a reasonably quick, utterly unique book.

A disturbing and good read by Valorie Tucker (VA, USA)

4 Stars
January 06, 2009
I loved the movie and decided that I wanted to try out the book. When my reading group selected this one, I was excited to open it up. Suffice to say, I was satisfied with the book. The main character, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, was definitely... a bad person. I spent so much of the book wondering what was going on in his head, trying to diagnose just what mental illness he suffered from to be so without emotion. Cruel, perhaps not, but definitely without moral judgment or really any sense of attachment to the people around him. I found myself disgusted, asking myself, "what is wrong with this guy?!" more times that I could possibly count. Ultimately, I found all of the characters repulsive in their own way, full of their own evil and vice. I think this was intended. Chilling of all is the plot, the decision of scentless Jean-Baptiste Grenouille to possess the sweetest smell of them all: the smell of beautiful young women. He is truly a man filled only with his own strange desires and hatred. His power to map any scent, to smell everything around him, is used to this end. It's a book about obsession, murder, mystery, mental illness, beauty... so many categories. It's definitely a good read, too, for anyone who likes historical fiction.

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