Perfume

Just finished the stunning Perfume by Patrick Suskind. An amazing book about a man called Jean- Baptiste Grenouille, a strange being born in early 18th century France, meant to be aborted by his mother, but survived while she was executed fo attempted infanticide. He grows up with no natural scent, though, like an animal he can distinguish thousands of scents. He grows up in horrible circumstances, but is apprenticed finally to a master perfumier. As he grows he comes to hate the very scent of humans, and lies in a cave in the Alps for 7 years, till he final discovers that it is his lack of natural scentthat makes him alienated from humans, whom he comes to detest. However he realizes that he can manufacture a variety of scents to mimic other humans, making them have certain feelings about him He decides that his goal is to create a perfume which will make all humans adore him. It is a tad unfortunate that the production of this special perfume requires the deaths of 26 beautiful virgin young girls to make it.....

I am irresistibly reminded here of satirist Jonathan Swift. Satirists as a whole have a pretty dim impression of the worth of humanity, and some indication of this appears when Grenouille can make a rough and ready approximation of human scent from the essence of cat dung, the scrapings of sardines, vinegar and rancid cheese! Suskind himself as refused all interviews, awards and prizes for many years, living as a recluse The whole book is heavily ironic right from the start(poor Grenouille, the priests called him Jean Baptiste, John the Baptsist, even though his mother was guillotined for infanticide, so he can never forget the circumstances of his birth) and ends in the darkest of ironic humour as Grenouille gets his wish to be loved by the people. We have glimpses of 18th century France in flux, detailed descriptions of making perfume by a number of processes, all in wonderful language( John Woods rightly won an award for translation of the year) We are fascinated and repulsed by turn, and in the beautiful prospects, only man is vile. By turns fascinating and repellent thsi book is totally mesmerising, original and disgusting by turns. The language, originality and style beg for 5 stars, the nitty gritty vileness of the topic begs a two. I think I will give it a 3.5 Not soon to be forgotten, this tour de force