Sonny asked:
"has anyone read Perfume by Patrick Susskind? i have not, but
am interested in what those who have thought of it."
I read it shortly before the movie came out. I never saw the
movie, but that's not really the fault of the book, which I
liked for what it was. It was a dark, gothic piece about a
horrid little man whose greatly enhanced sense of smell
(which at one point leads him to go off into the wilderness
in order to deal with the overwhelming smells of humanity)
led him to be one of the greatest perfumers ever, mostly
behind the scenes, since he is so horrid. And that horridness
is not confined to his looks, as he compiles a collection of
the smells of particular females; he is not at all concerned
that the women must die in order to give up their
scents.
I enjoyed the book. It's a dark read, but I wouldn't call it
noir. The language is far too flowery to be noir in my mind,
and the French Renaissance setting also precludes it in my
mind. Although the dark city streets here are quite nasty, I
guess I require them to be paved for it to be noir.
I highly doubt it's based on a true story, since it is
borderline fantastical in its treatment of the distillation
of human scents. Though the perfumers' art seems well
researched, his perverse application seems to cross the line
into the fantastic, not that someone would try, that I
totally buy, but that someone might succeed.
And, although it was set in France, it was written in German,
as Das Parfum.
Mark
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