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Description
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
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis
Summary
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... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Cast of Characters/Important People
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: the main character; has a supernaturally powerful sense of smell
- Grenouille's mother: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was her fifth baby
- Jeanne Bussie: One of Grenouille's many wet-nurses
- Father Terrier: He is in charge of the church's charities
- Madame Gaillard: She has a poor (or no) sense of smell
- Children at the Boarding House: They are repulsed by Grenouille
- Grimal: A tanner who lives near the river in the rue de la Mortellerie
- The Plum Girl: Her natural scent is that of sea breeze, water lillies, and apricot blossoms
- Giuseppe Baldini: An old perfumer.
- Chénier: Baldini's assistant
- Pélissier: Never actually appears in novel. He is only talked about because he is considered the most innovative perfumer in Paris.
- Taillade-Espinasse: Marquis, liege lord of a town of Pierrefort and a member of parliament
- Madame Arnulfi: A lively, black-haired woman of around thirty
- Dominique Druot: Arnulfi's journeyman and lover
- Antoine Richis: Second consul and the richest man in Grasse
- Laure Richis: A beautiful red-headed girl, daughter of Antoine Richis
Memorable Quotes
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“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.”
First Sentence
In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.
Table of Contents
Authors & Contributors
- Patrick Suskind (Author)
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