26. Him, Her, Him Again, The End of Him: a Novel by Patricia Marx

Most people can somewhat sympathize with Marx’s unnamed female character when she spends ten years of her life trying to make Eugene Obello love her. While in Cambridge working on her thesis of West Indian immigration, she meets Eugene who is a philosopher. They immediately hit it off and start a relationship, although when Eugene disappears for a few months and comes back announcing he has been in Eastern Europe with fellow student Margaret, readers begin to see that Eugene and the narrator have different ideas on what their relationship truly is. Over the next few years, the narrator quits school, returns home to her parents, works as a writer for a sketch comedy show in New York, and meets up with Eugene occasionally and has affairs with him. Eugene meanwhile ends up marrying Margaret and having a son, and has numerous affairs.

Although this book deals with serious issues, such as why someone would love someone who doesn’t treat them decently, this is a humorous take on modern day romances. Full of quirky secondary characters, hilarious parents, dark humor, and some great one liners, this novel is for those readers who like high-brow, yet hip comedies. Marx is a former writer for Saturday Night Live and currently writes for The New Yorker. I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the book, mostly because I just couldn’t sympathize with the narrator, but it did have some laugh out loud moments. Another drawback is that this book has one of the most cumbersome titles I have ever encountered and the cover can be misleading to certain readers expecting more of a mystery-type book.

25. Perfume: the Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Born in a dirty fish stall at a Parisian market in 1738, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille has a very hard beginning of his life. An orphan after his mother is beheaded, he is immediately rejected by society when his hired wet-nurse realizes he isn’t like other children – especially since he appears to have no smell to him during a time when the rest of society was full of many odors. As Jean-Baptiste grows older and flees his harsh working conditions as a tanner’s apprentice, he realizes that he has an extraordinary sense of smell (he can smell people approaching for miles and eventually kills a young girl whose odor is too perfect for him) and is determined to be the top perfumer in Paris. Years later, working as a perfumer, his obsession for the perfect scent leads him to kill two dozen virgins in his area to extract their pure scents. This perfume not only saves Jean-Baptiste’s life, but ultimately ends it also.

I first read this book a few years ago, and with the recent movie and perfume range launched for the movie, I felt like re-reading it. I love different scents and found Suskind’s description of the different smells throughout the book intoxicating. This book is full of vivid descriptions of the time period and the odd world of perfume. Although Jean-Baptiste is not an overly sympathetic character, I felt myself drawn to him and his strange world. The perfume world has also embraced this novel and the famous perfumer Thierry Mugler has created his own interpretation of scents in the novel. Check it out at http://www.leparfum.thierrymugler.com/us/