Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Perfume : Story of a Murderer - Patrick Suskind

Set in the late 19 centuray France, this novel written in 1985 by German writer Patrick Suskind. Heralded as a litereary sensation, this book had now been adapted into a movie ( which I haven't seen).

This is part of my backlog clearance exercise.. I have more than a dozen books in my shelf , bought over last few years , and not read. I have taken a resolution to complete all these books, before 2009.

This is an interesting book about a serial killer (? - very filmish it sound) in the 18th Centuray France. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille , abandoned by his mother in garbage, rescued and taken into an orphanage, is born with out a personal odor. But he develops ( or has it naturally ) a very acute sense of odor, may be due to the lack of his own smell. Grenouille finds a job with a perfumer with dwindling market share and fame, helping him to bring back his days of glory with his amazing combinations of perfume. After he has learned the methods and practices of mixing oils and herbs , he leaves him on his way to explore places. The building collapses mysteriously and the perfumer and his family dies on the same night. He spent his next seven years in a self imposed exile on a mountainl, away from all the living creatures and away from all the disturbing odors.

He returns to the world and gets himself a job of a perfumer again and here comes the twist. He develop a perfume which allows him to mingle with the crowd and people without them noticing his presence. By now he is obsessed with the development of one exotic perfume which was never made. The series of killing of virgin, with a specific age and characteristics begin with this quest. The story is now turns into suspense, horror and curiosity before he accomplishes his task of developing the scent never made after committing gruesome murder of 25 virgins. He was caught, prosecuted and found guilty. The execution time is on and he does the magic with his newly developed perfume. The same changes the atmosphere, it brings out all the suppressed passion of people into open and the place turn into an orgy and he is saved.

I find this novel as one which is written for movie adaptation. Easy reading and narration and a very different subject. Apart from that , I do not find anything interesting which calls for a second read.

You can read more about this at wiki ...

Perfume : Story of a murderer
Written By : Patrick Suskind
265 Pages

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