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| Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (International Writers) | 
 enlarge | Author: Patrick Suskind
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (23) from £2.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  103 reviews
Sales Rank: 3797
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0140120831
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140120837
ASIN: 0140120831
Publication Date: 1987
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Little River Books dispatch daily from South Wales. Customer satisfaction is our guarantee.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 98 more reviews...
 Overrated July 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A weird and unsettling book. It included some tedious description about things I found uninteresting (the ways purfumers distill/mix their scents etc) and this put me off (I was tempted to skip paragraphs). It was, however, creepy and off-beat enough to keep me focused and so I read until the end.
There is also alot of build-up and background info regarding the protangonist. This was good to a degree in setting the characterisation and atmosphere, but disappointing in that it didn't get to the meat and potatoes of the action (the multiple murders!) until quite near the end. I found this to be an anti-climax.
The ending left me feeling slightly unsettled and glad that the book was over and I could read something else.
Although I wouldn't call it absolutely 'gripping', it did interest me enough to read on and see what happened in the end (although to be fair, my time probably could have been better spent doing other things).
All in all, an overrated book but worth a look perhaps if you want something unusual.
 Chillingly brilliant July 12, 2008
It's been a while since I read a book that has truly shocked me: 'Perfume' by Patrick Suskind is a disturbing and original novel. Set in 18th century France, this is the story of Jean-Baptiste Grunouille, who has a super-human sense of smell but no natural body-odour of his own. He obsessively murders beautiful virgins (whose scent he finds appealing) in order to create the perfect perfume. The book is written in a way that makes me feel like it should be `smelt' rather than read because of all the different smells described. The narrator, disturbingly, makes you sympathise with the main character, a chilling murderer with a twisted plan.
A book to savour May 16, 2008
It's an extraordinary book. When a book is a classic, you just know it right there. This one is. It is beautifully written and very original. I read it in Russian and Dutch and loved both translations. It may sound elitist, but I believe, one has to be an aesthete to be able to appreciate this book. Those who like dynamic page turners will be disappointed. It's a book to savour.
What a story! February 28, 2008
I am so glad that I had the chance to read the book before Perfume became a film! The film is fantastic.... but the book is even better! Usually I would give a quick synopsis of the book, but I really don't know how to go about doing it without twittering on and giving it all away! Just read this book.... trust me!
Bit of a stinker December 3, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
'Magic Realism' as a writing style always hovvers on the boundary between the hyperreal and the hopelessly unreal. If a book falls into the latter category then only enormous wit and verve can save it.
Sadly Perfume is Magic Realism at its most depressing. It is hopelessly unreal: its central character undertakes a life journey that makes nonsense of time, place and plot. But then it has no wit or verve either: beyond the lively opening it is a ploddingly pendantic exercise in showing just how much research the author has undertaken on the subject of scent.
The key problem however is the book's hero - or anti-hero as Suskind would probably prefer. He is so repulsive, so unlikeable, so uninteresting. Worse still, he does not possess the intriguing back story or psychological depth that can sometimes lead us to sympathise with even the most unattractive characters. Not for one moment did I care what happened to him or why. And that's not a good basis for any story.
What Suskind has here is a clever short story or novella which is so overstretched that his limitations as a writer become visible. The opening is beguiling and atmospheric, and the premise intriguing; the ending is clever and well disguised. If he had compressed what sits in between by two-thirds, perhaps the whole piece - if no more real - would at least have had some magic.
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