Perfume

Perfume is a novel written by German historian and screenwriter Patrick Süskind, which narrates the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man with a special quality: a prodigious sense of smell. With the capacity to achieve great detail in describing everything he includes in the story.

Having the ability to achieve great detail in describing everything included in the story is the power of perfume.

Süskind manages to transport the reader to the malodorous France of the 18th century, making them feel fear, nerves, joy, and even rage, while also generating in the reader an eagerness to perceive the world of characteristic odors captured throughout the entire story.

In this way, Patrick Süskind creates this bestseller narrated in third person through 51 chapters—undoubtedly a masterpiece about the history of scents.

The protagonist of this story, throughout his life, was always obsessed with his lack of scent, which led him to despair over creating one so he could love and be loved, since from birth he represented nothing more than a burden and punishment for those around him.

The scent of a woman led him to love, but upon realizing this scent faded through time, he fell into such despair as to maintain the dream of preserving scents.

In this way, he finds himself as a perfumer’s apprentice with the faithful idea of learning techniques to achieve his longing.

Through the narration, Grenouille learns techniques to preserve scents—initially of flowers and objects, and later of animals and people, which becomes his greatest learning and his condemnation.

With the intention of creating the perfect perfume, the young man collects the scent of 25 young women, all of them beautiful and all murdered in the same way—with a sharp blow to the nape of the neck. But one last victim, too important for the protagonist, allows him to culminate his masterpiece.