Das Parfum by Patrick Suskind

[taschen]

In English it's "PERFUME"
Anyone who has ever read that please give some comments. I personally consider it curiously enticing, and also quite grotesque in a wretched way.
It reveals a brutal and primitive desire--to possess a particular scent rather than the real person--materialistic and cruel.

[didiervg]

I read this a couple of years ago and don't have it around know so I'm not sure of the details but I do remember vividly that I liked the book a lot. My idea is that the primitive desire you refer to is rather the (universal) desire to be liked and loved.

The main character (what's his name again? Grenouille? My memory resembles a sieve when it comes to names) isn't loved from the day he's born - actually through no fault of his own: after all, how can he help it that he doesn't have a smell of his own? Afterwards he is exploited and abused by his subsequent masters, and his retreat into isolation doesn't last either. So apparently, even though everyone he meets instinctively loathes him he still needs the company of other human beings.

My interpretation of his (granted: wretched and twisted) quest for the perfect smell is that he wants to be loved - and in a way he succeeds, doesn't he? When the book ends and he opens the phial of his 'master piece' the people around are so overcome by love and desire that they literally devour him. What's your idea?

[foma]

im not sure if he wants to be loved having in mind that he hates people. he lacks most human feelings and emotions. grenouille is not really a human being. he's not even an animal. he's a sick product of his sick enviroment. and in the same way he is an artist and as any true artist he creates for his own aesthetic satisfaction.

once i've read an interesting analysis about it - that the story goes through all philosophy movements and history. perhaps i will have to read it again.

[rimbaud]

I've read it couple of mounts ago and loved it!
It quickly became one of my fav books, the style is incredible and the story amazing.
I loved the character Grenouille.
now about the posesion of the scent above the real person, I think it means that the scent is the real person. the novel starts by saying how discussing the smell of the town and the people was, meaning that they were all rotten, corrupted, they use perfumes to hide their rotten selves. A metaphor kind of like people using masks. And Grenouille can see through that, you recall the scene with the priest, it was one of my fav. But being so extraordinary pays a price, he has no sense of his own, he's not like other people, he is different, no one wants him, so he hates them for it!
first we see him, wanting to make a scent of his own, just like a freak who wants to blend in. but he is meant to do so much more, he is capable of so much more... well I loved the book, and if there's anything you want to discus I'm happy to oblige, ut wouldn't want to tell spoilers just yet :)

[Sapphire]

I first read this book in one of my last years in high school. I had to read it and because I just had to I did not really read it - I just speeded through it to be able to answer the questions. I can not remember the book making any impression on me.

A few years later I saw the movie - and boy, did that make an impression! It might be that I saw it at 2 a.m. in a "scenic" cinema in Berlin... I am not sure. I just know the story grabbed me. And it was in German, for though I think the movie is English they have a habbit of dubbing their movies in Germany ;) So I saw an English movie about something which happens in France in the German language :confused:

Recently, I reread the book. And now it did grab me. It is a wonderful story - from beginning to end! I also like the character of Jean Baptiste (Grenouille), but I was very happy with the end - not where he gets away with it all but how he gets rid of his perfume in Paris :) I like how Grenouille is described, but I would definitely not want to meet him in person.
Apparently, the fact that he has no scent of his own makes everybody around him quite uncomfortable... After I read the book, I started to try and close my eyes and smell the people around me. I have to say that I wasn't too happy with the result: boy, do some places and people have a stench! There were not many positive smells to be found... I liked that best about the book: how it made smelling (to me) important again, not just seeing, feeling and hearing :D

Foma, if that analysis is to be found online, I would be very interested in a link. I try to imagine how this might work, but I can only imagine how his period in the cave might have something to do with philosophy movements...

Funny fact: the song Scentless Apprentice by Nirvana is inspired by Perfume. Apparently, Kurt Cobain really liked the book... It is not my favourite Nirvana song though :p

[Helga]

I love that one. it is wonderfully grotesque... and the middle part, that is left out in the lousy movie, is BRILLIANT. read it definitely!

[Scheherazade]

It's great to see almost 7-yo threads revived! :D

However, I agree with everyone that it is a breathtaking read...

[rimbaud]

It's great to see almost 7-yo threads revived! :D

However, I agree with everyone that it is a breathtaking read...

I just saw that the threat is since 2003 :D
anyway it is breathtaking



Funny fact: the song Scentless Apprentice by Nirvana is inspired by Perfume. Apparently, Kurt Cobain really liked the book... It is not my favourite Nirvana song though :p

yeah, I've heard about that, don't think mush of the song though
and I've read that is was his favorite book

[JoeLopp]

An absolutely fascinating read, Grenouille's curious personal trait is so 'novel' it makes the story what it is. Usually the very best come from just such an acute angle...

[tomazino]

Hello the only sane network in this crazy world of zeros and ones!!!

I'm very pleased to be able to find all of you folks... this a good, lucky day for me.

I'm looking for Das Parfume in German language for my daughter - in my townTbilisi (Georgia rep. of) it can't be found in the shops in Duetsch. she wants something easy to read and I offered her this....
Wanted to feed her Glasperlenspiel, but changed my mind... she's only 18 and I guess it's too early for her:)

Livingston Seagull is too short and I even can't find it in German... BTW did Richard Bach wrote something else equally fascinating?

Das Schloss from Kafka - even I did not read it and looking forward to do so, although my Deutsch is getting worse and worse..

sorry for verbal garbage:)
just couldn't stop it...

with most kind regards to this great community...

P.S. the cinema version of perfume is terrible piece of crap! honestly, I'd kill that bastard director of the movie:)

[inbetween]

P.S. the cinema version of perfume is terrible piece of crap! honestly, I'd kill that bastard director of the movie:)

exactly!!!
the bigest mistake was to let grenouille follow baldini's idea of that parfume... I mean of course grenouille follows baldini's orders concderning pure craft... but when it comes to composing a scent grenouille would never follow anyoneelses idea...

and perhaps das parfüm is not one of the easiest things to read but it's worth it.. I don't know the english version but the original is so bloody brilliant... the story the writin itself.. I hope you'll find it somewhere (I assume you can't get it via amazone...? dunno)

and as to what jean-baptiste grenouille want's .. I always thought he wanted what we all somehow want.. to be accepted the way we are and perhaps even more important... to express ourselves clearly (because we do so with our scent ... our scent is what we are, I mean.. we can smell each others genes... not counciously but still) and he has non ... he's trying to find himself and in the end... he just want's someone to understand ... what is inside of his head and how he feels... he tries and thinks he want's to be loved .. but he's mistaken... when he walks back to paris he want's the humans to know that he hates them... so all he want's is to communicate... (which, not only for him but for him the more, is pretty difficoult)
well
perhaps this was a little unstructured but take it as you please :D

[PeterL]

t's great to see almost 7-yo threads revived!

However, I agree with everyone that it is a breathtaking read...

And it's even more interesting the third time around, after more than eight years.

[tomazino]

My greetings to everyone,

I found the Das Parfume in Deutsch and just printing.

As about movie I even forgot everything about it, I actually did not watch all of it because it was obviously a "murder of the book"...:flare:

what about Weltschmerz ?
anybody has "enjoyed" (what a terrible word - enjoy - as if we are not enjoying any single good or bad we do... probably I should say : has anyone been lucky with Weltschmerz being happier then cocaine can do?) it after, say 15-20 years of burdening this small planet:)?

I think some day the Exchange, Institute of President, United Nations... and a thousand of the crap alike will be replaced by "environmental disaster recovery task forces"

It is sad, but it'll happen...