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Perfume
Patrick Süskind

Issue #0

Perfume

The Story of a Murderer

Penguin (26 Jan 1989)
9780140120837
| Paperback
272 pages | 128 x 196 mm | English
Dewey 813

Subject

  • Foundlings
  • France
  • Murderers
  • Odors
  • Perfumes

Plot

Set in 18th century France, Perfume relates the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, "one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages". Born lacking a personal odour (a fact other people find disquieting) but endowed with an incomparable sense of smell, he apprentices himself to a perfumer and becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human. In the process, he creates perfumespresumably based on pheromonesthat powerfully manipulate human emotions, murdering 25 girls to take their scent.