Has a book ever left you a little stumped? Like WHY IN THE WORLD WAS THIS BOOK CALLED A CLASSIC?? I wrote a post about “Popular Penguins” awhile back. I LUV Popular Penguins (Classic Books in Australia) and I think I even said it was fate that I found these books. I’m not prepared to rescind my dramatic exclamation; however, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer??? Are you serious? Seriously? That? A classic?
Oh boy.
The book was GROSS! GROSS! And GROSS! Like the part where he murdered 25 girls so he could wrap their body in linens to capture their smell. Then when he was arrested the raging mob turned into a mass orgy, and instead of crucifying him and breaking the 12 major joints of his body, they worshiped him because using the perfume from his victims he created a perfume that made him smell like a God. WHAT? Or how about the end when this same perfume that made others worship him turned a crowd of normal people into cannibals and they ate him? And they didn’t feel guilty for eating a HUMAN?
Out of the 263 pages that I read I liked three parts and they were at the very end so I decided to put them at the end of this post.
DAILY DOSE OF GOSSIP: 
LOSER (from this post) sent me a text tonight at 10:45 pm saying “Too bad you’re not here right now!” HAHA! Too bad he didn’t show up to the party on Friday is more like it!
And then this guy who looks like MIUB asked me out and it’s weird so I haven’t said yes . He talks like him too – it freaks me out a little. He is like a less-built, less hair-gel, nervous version of MIUB. LOL! Can I really go out with MIUB’s younger, nerdier version? Has anyone else ever gone on a date with a previous crush double? Maybe I’m being dumb about it but I think it’s weird. In fact – this may be a deal breaker …
Oh and here is a picture of some of the girls in our dinner group from New Year’s Eve (the fun part of my night.) 
If you can’t tell which one is me we have some serious problems. 
Quotes from Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind.
- What he had always longed for – that other people should love him – became at the moment of its achievement unbearable, because he did not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew that he had never found gratification in love, but always only in hatred – in hating and being hated.
- He could do all that, [rule the world] if only he wanted to. He possessed the power. He held it in his hand. A power stronger than the power of money or the power of terror or the power of death: the invincible power to command the love of mankind. There was only one thing that power could not do: it could not make him able to smell himself. And though his perfume might allow him to appear before the world as a god – if he could not smell himself and thus never know who he was, to hell with it, with the world, with himself, with his perfume.
- No one knows how good this perfume really is, he thought. No one knows how well made it is. Other people are merely conquered by its effect, don’t even know that it’s a perfume that’s working on them, enslaving them. The only one who has ever recognized it for its true beauty is me, because I created it myself. And at the same time, I’m the only one that it cannot enslave. I am the only person for whom it is meaningless.
Ok – ok – before you think I’m SOOOO terrible – I gave it a second thought and said yes to the MIUB look alike. I hope it’s a fun story to tell! ;)
That third quote is making me want to read this book.
I was a little put off by the book as well. I must say, it isn’t your typical happy ending story. However I must say, I think you haven’t quite reviewed the deeper implications of the novel.
Admittedly, Grenouille is a “tick-like” disgusting protagonist, however, if you look deeper, it is neccessary for him to be this way.
The novel reveals a great deal about the drive behind human beings’ behavioral actions and the basic human behaviors we all try so desperately to cover up. It also reveals a great deal about the irony of “modern society” and the “modern way of thinking”
The huge orgy at the end, is what really stuck out to me as showing me the underlying driving force behind human desire. The book implies we rely a great deal on scent, even if we don’t pay attention to it. The scent overcomes the 10,000 gathered spectators and suddenly they are all driven to passion, all because of scent. It also shos the extreme maliability of the masses.
It also was a ironic how “everyone was guilty” so they all just covered it up, and moved on. To me this showed how people, more pregressively have become obsessed with covering up the more “shameful” natural instincts we ALL have.
Another huge thing I found that held deeper implications was the way in which the masses reacted to their inability to blame someone for the deaths of all the virgins. Because they had no culprit, and the church failed to prevent the killings people all turned to a “higher power” Ironically the more simple minded folk stuck with the church, those more advanced middle class thinkers turned to Acience, and the upperclass thinkers all turned to worshiping the devil. Ironic isn’t it? Human beings need a higher power to look up to because when we don’t get explinations we suddenly feel a desire to look to a “higher power” (its hard for me to get across what im trying to say)
The novel reveals a great deal about chaos vs structure, old ways versus progressive thinking, peoples dependence on a higher power, the underlying animalistic instincts of humans,the irony of modern society, and a very dictinct and unique view of love.
mostly, it really emphasizes the ambiguity of morality. Is grenouille really doing a terrible thing? or is he simply trying to revolutionize the world of scent? It can be argued he is actually bettering the worl by releiving us of our own self concious control. is he truely as evil as he claim to be throughout the whole novel?
oh and at the end when they all devour him out of love, its especially ironic since they arent “normal” people they are the worst criminals in all of paris in which every action has always been based on hate and evil. Yet the worst act they could ever commit is simply out of love….ironic much? and yeah ill admit, strange, and very weird, but it had to be that way.
sorry for wrting so much. i thought however you might be interested in the little bit of deeper meaning behind this rather strange and disguting novel. I love it.
No need to apologize!!! I was and AM interested. You are absolutely right in a deeper meaning being present. I guess I didn’t really look because I was too put off by the whole thing. It’s interesting because as you mentioned the people were always searching for a higher meaning, an explanation – they needed that. And ironically it kind of seems to me that you would also have to have an inner drive for answers and reasons to delve deep enough to understand the point behind this book – for most people that is. It sounds like you understood it the whole time – so kudos to you!! But for the rest of us – or at least for me – the only way I would have looked deeper into this is if I wanted answers or meaning for the book. Instead I just chalked it up as … well … a little demented and then I looked the other way…
This is a good example that there can be meaning in beauty or revulsion – you just have to open your eyes and see it. Something I failed to do with this book.
Thank you for sharing!! I really do appreciate it. :)
Well, I actually loved the film, and the beginning of the book. Obviously it’s a bit disgusting that he murdered these 25 women, but if you dig deeper as Emily said it makes sense. His scent is the reason he survived. Now, put yourself in his place, you’re in deep misery, you didn’t receive any love from no one, young children tried to kill you couple of times, and then, the scent of a woman hits you. It’s beautiful, it’s his own ‘happy place’. In all the misery France was in the eighteenth century, he managed to be happy. I’m pretty sure a lot of people didn’t manage to find happiness but he did. And I kind of think that’s beautiful. But then there are other opinions. You have to be careful how you read a book, careful not to be too bias. Süsking prepares the readers to all this disgustingness by making the setting dreadful.
I am currently studying this book in class, and I think it’s very interesting compared to other books that are dead boring. (The outsider)
PS. sorry if this comment was posted twice, pbm with my computer
i totally agree with you about the novel, but unlike you i was not put off by the protagonist, he lead me to read on. i think what you were trying to say about the higher power is that society needs to have someone or something to turn to when there is something they can not explain or get an explanation out of. overly i think that you got the meaning of what the novel was actually about, not just about a murderer.
(:
It is a Classic and is a very good book, the only reason you don’t under stand it or can’t get your head round it is that you are reading it badly. It is a true fear that Suskind made something so disgusting and yet still had people read on and not trow the book out the window.
Wow I never read a review that completely misses the point or the thing it reviews.