The book on the nightstand: Perfume. The Story of a Murderer

Have you ever thought about not having any smell?

I get it because I always feel a smell with a certain eco effect, that if we are talking about stink, it might be a relief but in the other cases it is a crazy waste of emotions.

I am talking about emotions because when I think about the word “scent” I get the smell of the skin in my mind. It is the Perfume par excellence!

In fact, it has often turned out to be a good natural selection of the people with whom I had a sentimental bond, as if their smell was a prerequisite of attraction like nice hands or eye.

I don’t feel very normal anyway, especially when I’m absorbed in my thoughts and unconsciously, I smell the skin of my hand or wrist. The skin like Proust’s madeleine and in me snaps the memory of the scent of my mother’s skin.

Can you imagine my reaction when I have read for the first time (yes, there was a second one) the novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind? Can’t you? Let’s move on to the book.

Jean Baptiste Grenouille was born in 1738, on a day of stifling heat, in the stinking market of Paris, between the fish heads under the mother’s fishstand. Taken from his mother, suspected of infanticide, he is put out to a nurse who will soon no longer want him in custody because she sees in him something sinister. He is devoid of any smell.

His whole existence is a burden of counterfeiting. Although odorless, he has a very fine smell; with the nose Jean Baptiste knows the world: fear, happiness, anxiety, tranquility, joy. He feels everything.

Men could close their eyes in front of the greatness, in the face of horror, and shake their ears in front of melodies or seductive words. But they could not escape the scents. Because the perfume is the brother of the breath. With it penetrated men, they could not resist it, if they wanted to live.

Out of the orphanage he is welcomed by a perfumer master, who becomes the helper, and he soon finds out his immense talent. The desire to create a unique perfume is born in him, capable of triggering a boundless love.

The one who dominated smells dominated the hearts of men.

He recognizes this perfume in beautiful women, female figures who seem to emerge from the Gustav Klimt paintings, and they soon become his victims. The search for perfect perfume transforms Jean Baptiste into a serial killer.

In depriving him of the smell, Suskind deprives his protagonist of empathy and sensitivity. As a black soul, he walks through the streets of Paris doing ruthless actions of which he does not seem to deeply know the monstrosity. Jean Baptiste knows one thing:

without the smell he does not exist and he wants to exist because he wants to be loved!

It’s a brilliant book, out of the box. A book that opens to the reader the world of perfumes: stinks, fragrances, smells try to explain the power of The Perfume. A book to the wise.

Reading time
some scented night

Ph. Sara Cartelli
© The Eat Culture