The year is 1738; the place, Paris. A baby is born under a fish-monger’s bloody table in a marketplace, and abandoned. Orphaned, passed over to the monks as a charity case, already there is something in the aura of the tiny infant that is unsettling. No one will look after him; he is somehow... read more
Grenouille (French for "frog") is an unwanted Parisian orphan who, having little personal scent, is rejected by others because they are disturbed by his lack of odor. He has an extraordinary power to discern odours, and comes to loathe the scent of other people. He becomes apprenticed to a... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
“What he had always longed for - that other people should love him - became at the moment of its achievement unbearable, because he did not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew that he had never found gratification in love, but always only in hatred - in hating and being hated.”
“He could do all that, <rule the world> if only he wanted to. He possessed the power. He held it in his hand. A power stronger than the power of money or the power of terror or the power of death: the invincible power to command the love of mankind. There was only one thing that power could not do: it could not make him able to smell himself. And though his perfume might allow him to appear before the world as a god - if he could not smell himself and thus never know who he was, to hell with it, with the world, with himself, with his perfume.”
“No one knows how good this perfume really is, he thought. No one knows how well made it is. Other people are merely conquered by its effect, don’t even know that it’s a perfume that’s working on them, enslaving them. The only one who has ever recognized it for its true beauty is me, because I created it myself. And at the same time, I’m the only one that it cannot enslave. I am the only person for whom it is meaningless.”
“Looked at objectively, however, there was nothing at all about him to instill terror. As he grew older, he was not especially big, nor strong-----ugly, true but not so extremely ugly that people would necessarily have taken fright at him. He was not aggressive, nor underhanded, nor furtive, he did not provoke people. he preferred to keep out of their way.”
“And so it happened quite naturally and as the result of no particular decision that his plan to take the fastest road to Grasse gradually faded; the plan unravelled in freedom, so to speak, as did all his other plans and intentions. Grenouille no longer wanted to go somewhere, but only to go away, away from human beings.”
“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”
Preceded by Corelli's Mandolin, and followed by House Rules.
Preceded by Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Volumes 1-3, and followed by Finishing Touches.
Preceded by The Handmaid's Tale, and followed by Old Masters.
Preceded by Justine, and followed by Misery.
Preceded by Lord of the Flies, and followed by The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
Preceded by A Prayer for Owen Meany, and followed by Doctor Zhivago.
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