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/