Perfume

This was a beautifully written, intensely creepy book. It was sort of a fantasy, perhaps a little more magical realism. I was struck most by the amazing prose of this translation from the German. There's very little dialogue, it's almost all description, mostly from the murderer's point of view. It's about smells and the power they have over us. I'm not much of a fragrance person. I used to be terribly allergic to flowers, trees, grass. I never liked the smell of a freshly mown lawn and perfumes and colognes usually made me gag. But this book was able to override that guttural reaction and make me believe in the power of the scent. This book won the 1987 World Fantasy Award. It was a huge best seller in Europe and obviously had an impact on the English-speaking fantasy community.

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