The subject of the book, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born into a bloody beginning in 18th century France. The trail of blood is never far from his life as he attempts to satiate his unbending drive to concoct the perfect scent. Because Grenouille has such a highly developed, even preternatural; sense of smell it is inevitable that this skill would be tied into the vocation of perfume making. The historical setting is very well done with descriptive terms that helped me feel that I was observing first hand the events described in the book. There is a movie made from the book, and although it employs several fine actors I will likely abstain from seeing it as I'm not sure that the sensate landscape from reading could be reproduced onto the screen.
As an example of the writing here's a paragraph I particularly liked:
"He was delighted only by moonlight. Moonlight knew no colors and traced the contours of the terrain only very softly. It covered the land with a dirty gray, strangling life all night long. This world molded in lead, where nothing moved but the wind that fell sometimes like a shadow over the gray forests, and where nothing lived but the scent of the naked earth, was the only world that he accepted, for it was much like the world of his soul."
On a lighter note as hard as I tried I could not escape the 1970's hit song "Dead Skunk" by Loudon Wainright as I read the book:
Crossin' the highway late last night
He shoulda looked left and he shoulda looked right
He didn't see the station wagon car
The skunk got squashed and there you are!
You got yer Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
You got yer dead skunk in the middle of the road
Stinkin' to high Heaven!
Take a whiff on me, that ain't no rose!
Roll up yer window and hold yer nose
You don't have to look and you don't have to see'
Cause you can feel it in your olfactory
I will admit that olfactory is one of my favorite words, and I also tender congratulations to the book's author Patrick Suskind for using the word judiciously and not liberally, as would be my tendency. I mean, how can you write a whole novel centered on the sense of smell and not use such a perfect word as olfactory on every page?
There is good character development also. Of particular interest to me was a perfumer named Baldini - a blustering, bumbling, bombastic bozo who develops an affection for Grenouille and takes him under his wing to teach him the trade.
There are three major parts to Grenouille's story. He begins as an outcast from society, and in the middle of the book is an interlude that sees his withdrawal from soceity, then in an interesting plot twist he is introduced into and accepted by society. Ultimately I have concluded that the subject of the book is not Grenouille, but his nose! Suskind is a great wordsmith, and I think his concept and commentary of the olfactory sense (oops - there I go) is wrapped in the story.
The story ends though in a macabre way that left me puzzled and irritated. I'll not be a total plot spoiler but I was not satisfied and even perturbed about the final events that transpired.
Other than then ending which left me flat, an enthralling read overall.
