Thursday, June 26, 2008

Perfume

Wow, was this different! Patrick Suskind's book is interesting, clever and very, very disturbing. It reads really quickly and certainly made my flight to Poland to see my parents pass by fast! That's exactly what you want from whatever book you read on the plane!

The story is about Jean-Baptiste Grenouille living in 19th century France. He is certainly not like other people and he certainly does not fit in. His talent is his sense of smell - over-developed as if to make up for the lack of any othe humanness in him. Although he is clearly not the sort of person you'd want around you and although human life and human in general are not things that he values, I must say that I didn't dislike him all that much until quite a bit into the story. I felt some sort of indifference for him and certainly some interest in his life, but strong negative feelings towards him only came later. That still surprises me.

Perfume was recommended to me by so many people and I can see why. If you haven't read it yet put it on your list, you won't regret it.

Challenges: 1% Well-Read Challenge, 888 Challenge, Orbis Terrarum Challenge

4 comments:

Tasha said...

I don't know that I will read this book, as I saw the movie, and it disturbed me. I do think, however, that the sense of smell is often overlooked and worth exploring. I enjoyed Rachel Herz's The Scent of Desire, which a lighter non-fiction book on the power of scent.

Lezlie said...

Sounds interesting! Another for The List!

Have a great day, Joanna!
Lezlie

joanna said...

charley - yes, it is quite disturbing... but worth it anyway. And thanks for the book idea, sounds interesting!

Lezlie - The List is capitalised now eh? :-) You'll definitely like this - and it's on the 1001 list too!

Lezlie said...

It is! That's to differentiate it from all of our other "lists", lower case. :-)

L.