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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer | 
 enlarge | Author: Patrick Suskind
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $2.49
You Save: $11.46 (82%)
New (40) Used (73) from $2.49
Rating:  400 reviews
Sales Rank: 6243
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0375725849
Dewey Decimal Number: 833.914
EAN: 9780375725845
ASIN: 0375725849
Publication Date: February 13, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Some wear on cover. Pages clean. Fast shipping from central Texas. All international orders ship by airmail.
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Product Description
An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.
In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift-an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and frest-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brillance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.
Translated from the German by John E. Woods.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 395 more reviews...
 Morbid boring and graphic August 3, 2008
Dawn Dellarocco (SHELTON, CT)
I read this book and didn't care for it at all. Certain parts of the book were depressing and morbid. All it talked about the scent of perfume and murders. The story was really weird and did not care for it at all. The writing was a bit confusing and boring. I'm just glad I bought the 1986 trade paperback edition at a supermarket used book drive for charity. I forced myself to finish this.
 Strange July 26, 2008
Love shopping Amazon (MA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
this book was very engrossing and a fairly fast read. I actually threw it away when I was finished with it, which I can't remember ever doing with a book. I either keep my books or give them away. I found this book to be quite disturbing, and one that stuck with me in a most unpleasant way. The book gets 3 stars because of the writing style, but I could not bring myself to pass it on to another reader.
 Original and delightful! July 21, 2008
T-Rexx (France)
Suskind's novel is the story of a madman, a serial killer of ages past whose main characteristics is his intense use of a rarely-tackled sense: smell. With a birth-given gift as unique as it is powerful, this serial killer gets on a rampage led, like a powerful dog, by his nose.
Although the story plot might appear quite slim, the whole book is a masterpiece. It reads fast, pleasantly, and covers primarily two subjects: the discovery and exploration of the sense of smell and its derived power(s), the tortuous life of an ill-born person who's constantly struggling between good and evil in search of his very-own self.
The book is littered with vivid depictions of various everyday life scenes on which the use of the olfactory sense shades a unique type of light. Things are seen from a totally different perspective than the usual "see and hear" approach. Fascinating. In fact, I suspect Suskind to have wanted to push the envelope of the discovery of this sense by featuring, in his story, such an extraordinary -in the primal meaning of the word, ie out of the ordinary- use of the sense of smell by a serial killer. This character is capable of the best (work in the fragrance world with the creation of unique mixes) and the worst in his life (use of this sense to detect infinitesimal tracks of smells that tells him about the whereabouts of his victims, pretty much like a cold shark lurking in the waters in search of its next prey). It is just a matter of circumstances and personal choice for him to shift from the bright side to the dark side of life.
Truly, the sections describing the universe of fragrances, odors and generally, the usage of the sense of smell, are unique. Upon closing the book once finished reading, the reader will never consider his/her own nose in the same way again.
Chillingly brilliant July 12, 2008
Farah Yousif (Kuwait)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's been a while since I read a book that has truly shocked me: 'Perfume' by Patrick Suskind is a disturbing and original novel. Set in 18th century France, this is the story of Jean-Baptiste Grunouille, who has a super-human sense of smell but no natural body-odour of his own. He obsessively murders beautiful virgins (whose scent he finds appealing) in order to create the perfect perfume. The book is written in a way that makes me feel like it should be `smelt' rather than read because of all the different smells described. The narrator, disturbingly, makes you sympathise with the main character, a chilling murderer with a twisted plan.
A Formula; For What? June 21, 2008
Joseph Ryan (Cairo, Egypt (these days))
This is an easy-to-read, well liked novel; the author sticks to a simple, compelling formula and doesn't let things get complicated. The comments of Jamie Bower in August 2007 and "A Customer" in May 2003 were about right: Perfume is essentially a short story.
It reads like an allegory with echoes of Zarathustra, Dracula, Frankenstein, Hugo, Dumas (Monte Cristo), and goodness knows what. I don't know German language literature very well so I'm not sure what else besides Nietzche Suskind (writing in German) has going. There's not enough characterization to inspire any particular interpretation of the allegory in my mind.
Think Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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