Perfume - Patrick Suskind

I thought I'd read this before I saw the film (am I the only person who like to do it this way round?) - and what a shock I got! This book is translated from the German by someone who seems to be using and online translation device! The sentences are long and cumbersome, and many of the words are frankly out-dated. One sentence I read was five lines long! I realise I can't blame all this on the translator. It is probably a reflection on the cultural difference between two countries' styles of wiritng. I am used to a punchier style. So does the style fit the story? Well, not necessarily. The hero (or anit-hero, really) Grenouille stumbles through life as a ...

Sniff your fingers. What do you get? I’ve just done it and mine are onions that have perhaps seen better days. My index finger is the strongest and as I conquer mount middle digit and descend to the valley of the small the smell begins to wane. At my little finger the onions disappear and there is something there, something I can’t place and yet something that is essential to me. That smell, that tiny note that is imperceptible and ever present, is my smell. The effects of preparing roasted onions aside, imagine if you had no sense of your own smell. How would that affect you? Perhaps not that much, given the lynx and Givenchy juices that ...

Perfume was first released in the original German in 1985, followed the following year by the English translation. This is a book that I have had on my "to be read" list for literally years, and only finally got round to recently. You know how these lists work, they are forever growing and titles get displaced as priorities change and new books are released and people recommend things that "you really must read". Well, Perfume is one that should have been read a lot sooner than it was. If you haven't already read it, I strongly recommend that you do. The plot is straightforward enough. A boy is born into late 18th century Paris, a ...