Perfume
PERFUME by Patrick Suskind Award: PEN/Translation Winner 1987 Date Read: December 11, 2023 From Kirkus Reviews: “Fr om a West German playwright: an elaborate historical fable about smell, set in 18th-century France--obsessive, showy, heavily (if rather murkily) metaphorical, with a fair amount of black-comic dazzle but only a glimmer or two of genuine narrative magic. Suskind's monster--hero is Jean. Baptise Grenouille, born in stench-ridden Paris in 1738, an instant orphan (his fishwife-mother is beheaded for multiple infanticide), rejected by society, barely allowed to live. But, though ugly, deformed, and hateful, Grenouille has been born with a double-miracle when it comes to odor: he himself is odorless. . .and he has super-powers of smell for the odors around him! And soon, inspired by the glorious aroma of a luscious maiden (whom he kills), young Grenouille vows to become history's greatest perfumer, to ""revolutionize the odoriferous world."" H...