"Perfume" by Patrick Susskind
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- Scott
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might reread it though after reading the other posts, see how i'll like it now.
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- rooserfeather
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- OSnowToGo
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It is undoubtedly a great piece of writing. Beautiful to read.
However, I thought the story was actually quite lacking and I struggled to keep going. The book became hard work due to the wonderful over-complication of passages. I felt I could read for pages without much actually happening in the story. A work that maybe would have been better as a shorter piece for me. It just didn't hold me. But maybe I am just a slave to the modern, high-octane page-turners!
Did anyone else have a similar experience? Or am I just being a bit of a literary simpleton..?
- Circling Turtle
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I agree with Scott that the nature of morality is one of several important themes in this book. More specifically, where does morality come from? Is it taught or innate? Would Jean-Baptiste have become like he did if he had had a happier childhood, with genuine love?
I found the theme of smell so interesting. It governs us subconsciously but we barely give it any thought. It was doubly fascinating for me because up until I was a teen I had an overdeveloped sense of smell (smoking has suppressed that to a large extent, although it is still pretty sharp and distracting), and I was much more affected than other people by smells. Suskind is a truly talented writer to be able to express such an abstract sense.
- Kali0925
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- aoboshi36
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For me, the best thing would be how Suskind nails it in describing every detail in such a way that evokes a very realistic picture of mind. However, I was really disappointed with the movie adaptation as I mostly did with most book-to-movie adaptation since it was not anywhere as dramatic, thrilling, and realistic as the book did.