Best book ever!

Though the end was a little bit... macabre. But it fit the story. 

This book is wild! Sure, the story had it's dark moments, but it's also ridiculous (in a good way). I genuinely was not expecting some of the things that happened - especially in those final chapters. I also love the fact that it focuses so much on scent. It's an underused sense in literature, but so good as conjuring up emotions. Just do listen to the audiobook on public transit like I did - I was VERY aware of the scents on the bus that day.

But I think my favourite part is that it reads like a text from the 18th century. I've read a lot of Victorian literature for both school and for fun, so I'm very familiar with the writing style of the time. I had to double check that this book was actually written in the 1980s - you could've fooled me.

“Het parfum” is een zeer zorgvuldig  geschreven psychologische thriller dat zich afspeelt in de 18de eeuw, specifieker de vieze, stinkende en de rijke straten van Parijs. Hij opent een nieuwe manier van denken in je brein. Je gaat op een rollercoaster van emoties: ervaar verdriet, woede, eenzaamheid, avontuur,, wanhoop en pijn. Vreugde, opluchting, hoop en vrede. Het boek maakte me zo kwaad dat ik alle personages levend wou begraven, maar soms kon je niet anders dan empathie voelen met elk personage. 

I read this book years ago for school and it has stuck with me ever since, and after rereading it it is still one of the most interesting, skin-crawling (in a good way) books I have ever read. We follow the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who is born with a superhuman sense of smell but no scent of his own. Grenouille is such an interesting central character in that the narrator has absolutely no sympathy for him; while the reader might at least feel a little bad for the way he is treated as a child, the narrator constantly and from the very beginning handles him with distain, calling him an “abomination” and a parasitical pest. The book is a fascinating extended character study of a person with no sense of right or wrong and a lot of hatred for his fellow man. 

The description throughout the novel is almost nauseatingly vivid, with each character we come across thoroughly examined not only in terms of their scent but also in terms of their character, with their flaws brought to the foreground. Every character and setting is primarily described olfactorily as this is the way Grenouille perceives the world, and by focusing on smell over the other more common senses, it is as if one were to look at the world through an entirely different lens. Süskind even laments about the difficulty of describing scents in words, which is comically meta. 

In particular, I love the use of foreshadowing laced throughout the novel, and spotting the clues pointing towards certain characters’ demises make this book a great reread. Furthermore, the biblical imagery is also a fantastic addition to the vivid descriptions throughout, and this is especially clear during Grenouille’s dream sequence - one of the most entertaining parts of the novel for me. 

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book to everyone due to some of the topics it deals with being sensitive and/or pretty gross, and I find that much like Marmite people either love it or hate it. But if you’re looking for a book that will stay with you for years and you’re okay with the content warnings, I’d give it a go.