Summary The Perfume of Süskind

The Perfume by Patrick Süskind

Summary of the novel

The novel "Perfume" is about the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille and his incredible sense of smell.

The novel is set in 18th-century France. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born in 1738 in the fish market in Paris, in the midst of foul-smelling, spoiled vegetables and fish. His mother strays away, the child is discovered by his crying, and the mother is convicted of infanticide and beheaded. Little Jean-Baptiste is entrusted to several wet nurses, but they always return the boy, as he seems sinister to them and demands too much milk.

Jean-Baptiste is then taken to a convent, where he also frightens the wet nurse and finally Father Terrier with his greedy and instinctive behavior, with which he absorbs food and smell. As a "child of the devil", the boy is given away again and ends up with the children's nurse Mrs. Gaillard, who has no sense of smell. Therefore, she is unable to determine that the boy himself has no inherent odor, another trait that repelled previous nurses. The nurse has several foster children who sense that the boy is different and try to kill him. Grenouille, in his younger years, quickly learns to judge and distinguish between the surrounding smells. The names of various smells are the first words the boy learns.

Mrs. Gaillard discovers Grenouille's talent for classifying smells. At the age of six, he can name and distinguish all the smells inside and outside the house. His world of thoughts revolves around smells. Mrs. Gaillard is the only one who supports him in his otherness; he is scary to his teachers and other children. When the convent stops paying the nurse for her services, she sells Grenouille to Mr. Grimal, a master tanner. He trains Grenouille using rather brutal methods. Grenouille becomes very ill but survives. At the age of twelve, the boy experiences some freedom for the first time and is allowed to go out for an hour, at first only on Sundays, later on, several days after work. Grenouille strolls the streets of Paris during this free time, always on the lookout for the most unusual smells.

One evening in September, Grenouille is once again out and about in Paris. An unfamiliar scent irresistibly attracts him. As he follows the scent, it leads him to a girl he thinks is the most beautiful creature ever. Grenouille feels the urge to possess this fragrance at any price. He follows this intoxicating perfume. This led him through the streets of Paris to the Rue des Marais. There he discovers a young red-haired girl: Grenouille feels that his life would no longer make sense without the possession of this perfume. He kills the girl undresses her and absorbs her entire smell. Days later, he can still recall the smell, while the memory of her face fades. After this experience, he makes the decision to become the greatest perfumer of all time.

The most important perfumer in Paris at the time was Guiseppe Baldini. Grenouille applies to him as an apprentice and is accepted. Baldini has a serious competitor named Pélissier, also a genius when it comes to fragrances. His best-selling fragrance is "Amor and Psyche," the new fashion fragrance in town. To get the job as an apprentice, Grenouille figures out the scent formula of "Amor and Psyche," a task Baldini himself had previously spent hours trying but failing at. Grenouille, to Baldini's complete astonishment, created a perfect imitation of the formula of "Amor and Psyche". When Baldini, ashamed that the apprentice had managed to do at first attempt what he himself could not, criticized his performance, Grenouille even managed to improve the fragrance. Baldini asks for time to think it over, but then hires Grenouille as an apprentice and buys him from the master tanner. He sees in Grenouille his chance to regain his success and reputation from earlier times. The master tanner celebrates the windfall and drowns drunk in the Seine.

Grenouille learns the art of distillation and perfume-making from Baldini. He soon creates new and extraordinary fragrances for the perfumer. Baldini regains prosperity and saves his business. Now all of Paris wants to buy Baldini's fragrances, and Baldini's store is full of celebrities who want to buy one of his perfumes. Baldini continues to train Grenouille and shows him how to create formulas, calculate proportions, and measure. This, however, repels Grenouille, who does not want to create the fragrances by calculation; he is concerned with absorbing them and mastering them. When Baldini shows his apprentice how to extract the scent from a plant, he again has his full attention. To do this, the plants are put into a cauldron, an alembic, after which the scents are filtered out and distilled, and the unusable remains of the plants are then thrown away.

After Grenouille learns these skills, he realizes that it is not enough for him to create scents in this way. He dreams of other smells and fears that he will never be able to create the smells he has in mind. Then he falls seriously ill and Baldini tries to save him. His regained success depends on Grenouille. However, the latter wants to die and Baldini almost gives up on him. Then he tells him that there are other methods to extract and preserve fragrances. These are operated in the southern French town of Grasse. As a result, Grenouille is restored to health in a very short time. In order for his master to let him go, he reveals hundreds of new scent formulas to him and promises never to pass them on to anyone else. With that, Baldini lets Grenouille go. That same night, Baldini's house collapses. Baldini and his wife die.

Part Two

Grenouille is now 18 years old and is on foot to the south of France For the first time in his life he is completely free, which he perceives as a unique smell. He realizes that he enjoys the distance from other people and prefers solitude. His real destination, the southern French town of Grasse, fades into the background. Grenouille stays away from people and climbs the Plomb du Catal volcano, his "mountain of solitude," and lives for seven winters in a cave where he does not have to smell any other people. During this time, he mentally arranges all the smells he has perceived since childhood, especially that of the girl he killed.

During this time, Grenouille creates new, unique scents in his mind and retreats into his own world. He punishes in his mind the people who have treated him badly in life. During his time in the cave, Grenouille realizes in a dream that he himself has no scent. He wakes up screaming from this nightmare and leaves the cave to return to civilization. He perceives this realization of not possessing a self-smell as the catastrophe of his life.

Grenouille reaches a town and pretends to have been held captive by robbers. He meets the Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse, a nobleman who has turned his back on Versailles thinking he is a brilliant scientist. He devotes himself to this science in seclusion. Out of curiosity, he takes in Grenouille. For the Marquis is researching a mysterious "fluid", a deadly substance that harms humans when they live in too close contact with nature. Since Grenouille spent seven years in a cave, he becomes the ideal research object for the Marquis. The Marquis treats Grenouille with a medicine he created himself. This is supposed to make Grenouille a healthy person again in a few days. The transformation of the decrepit Grenouille, who now washed and made himself up, actually took place. With the help of the Marquis, Grenouille creates a perfume for himself that gives him his own human smell. He finally wants to smell like a human being. He realizes that this will enable him to be perceived as a human being by others. Grenouille reacts with surprise and learns how easily he can fool people. As a result, he feels joy and contempt at the same time. First and foremost, however, he thinks he will be happy because he can control being loved by others.

The Marquis organizes a conference and gives a lecture on his theories. In doing so, Grenouille presents as a success for his science and is celebrated. However, Grenouille like<b that the positive feelings that those present give him are only due to the perfume he wears. The Marquis sets off for the Pyrenees to prove that he will return rejuvenated. However, he does not return.

Part Three

Grenouille leaves the Marquis' country estate and arrives in the town of Grasse. There he is fascinated by the new fragrances he is unfamiliar with. Above all, he is attracted by the scent of a girl named Laure. He is determined to acquire this scent as well, but this time he does not want to kill the girl. He is still undecided about the scent and decides to wait. He takes it upon himself to continue learning for two years first. During this time, he works for a widow and learns the technique of maceration. This involves liquefying fat in a cauldron and throwing flowers into the hot fat. In the process, the flowers die and release their fragrance into the fat. He then learns the technique of effleurage, in which blossoms are placed on a plate coated with fat. This enables Grenouille to obtain particularly pure fragrances. Grenouille now experiments with capturing scents from animals, people, and various objects, not just plants.

With this new knowledge, Grenouille experiments with capturing and preserving the smells of plants, objects, animals, and people.

Grenouille keeps thinking about the scent of the girl Laure. He fears losing it, or that her scent will fade with time, whatever preservation method he would use. Therefore, he decides to create a tiara with the girl's scent preserved in its heart.

Grasse at this time is haunted by a murderer who kills young girls. The murderer targets the most beautiful girls and terrifies the town. All of a sudden the murders stop, which the town attributes to the bishop excommunicating the murderer. A messenger arrives in town and reports that the murderer has been caught in another town and has confessed. The real murderer, however, is Grenouille. The latter is working on his tiara to complete his perfume.

Antoine Richis is the richest citizen of Grasse. At the same time, he is the father of Laure, the girl whose fragrance Grenouille wants to possess and whose scent he wants to make the centerpiece of his diadem. The father has a nightmare in front of the girl killer. Antoine Richis, unlike the wider population of the town, fears that the murderer has not yet been caught. He thinks that the killer, who murders only beautiful girls, has a deeper purpose and feels that he needs Laure for his intentions.

So Richis thinks about how to save his daughter. He decides to put the murderer on a false trail and publicly announces that he will travel to Grenoble with his daughter. In reality, however, he wants to marry Laure secretly; her future husband is to be Alphonse, the son of Baron de Bouyon.

Grenouille pursues the two out of town, his keen sense of smell leading the way. At night, he sneaks into Laure's room when the two are staying at an inn. His human scent has disguised him again. He kills the girl and distills Laure's scent. In the process, he muses that he is about to complete his life's work.

The people of Grasse learn of Laure's death the next morning. They decide to catch the murderer at any cost. Panic breaks out in the town, some take refuge in the church, others in superstition.

Grenouille's house is also searched, Laure's clothes and hair are found and Grenouille is arrested. The population is full of hatred for him and Laure's father plots revenge. Grenouille is sentenced to death.

Grenouille, who has completed his life's work, accepts it indifferently. He is to be executed that afternoon. Grenouille opens the bottle with Laure's scent right at the scaffold and in front of the entire assembled town. Suddenly the mood changes and the people who just despised him now love him and break out in cheers. Richis asks for his forgiveness and wants to give him a home. The scent has clouded Richis' mind, as it reminds him of his daughter. He offers to take him home with him, so he can have Laure's scent near him. In Grenouille's place, the journeyman is executed by Madame Arnulfi, as he is now blamed for the murders.

Part Four

Grenouille does not stay with Richis but returns to Paris. He seeks out the fish market, the place of his birth, to die there. Once there, Grenouille douses himself with the entire bottle of perfume, right there, in the stinkiest place in town. The people around him slaughter him and ecstatically start eating him up until there is nothing left of him. Everyone greedily wants to possess and ingest this fragrance.

Reception of the novel

The novel Perfume combines different genres and styles, which also allow for different interpretations. At first glance, the work is a detective novel that tells the story of a mass murderer, but it can be classified in other styles as well. The detailed description of 18th-century France makes it simultaneously a historical novel and, by illuminating the psyche of the main character, a psychological novel.

The possibilities of interpretation are just as complex as the classification into different literary genres.

Grenouille, the artistic genius

One interpretation of the work refers to the eccentric Grenouille, who discovers and develops his genius in the course of his life from his eccentricity, his distinctive sense of smell, and the lack of his own smell. He is characterized by an outstanding ability, his sense of smell. The sense of smell is the basis for being able to develop his abilities. However, this talent also sets him apart from others, which at the same time means isolation. By developing his talent, the genius tries to discard and overcome his loneliness. Since he is not integrated into the society of other people and experiences mainly rejection from them, he has little inhibition to disregard their rules and conventions and even to murder for the achievement of his goals.

Perfume as a novel critical of society

Another possible interpretation of the work is based on the fact of how Grenouille manages to manipulate and use people for his own purposes. If Grenouille is initially concerned with being accepted by people, in the latter part of the novel he discovers his power and uses his skills to control people in ways that are useful for his purposes.

Perfume as a novel of development

This interpretation refers primarily to the personal development of the main character, Grenouille. It sheds light on the question of whether Grenouille is evil from the start or whether a development towards evil takes place. From the very beginning of the novel, an animalistic side of Grenouille is portrayed, drinking inordinately as an infant and sniffing other people without restraint. From the beginning, however, Grenouille also finds himself in a hostile environment that rejects him. The child Grenouille does not experience love and affection. Before he uses his abilities to manipulate people towards the end, he merely uses them to be recognized and needed. Nevertheless, even then there is an inner urge to complete his life's work, the perfume, and to murder for it.

Follow-up works

The Perfume served as the template for the 2006 feature film The Perfume - Story of a Murderer by German producer Bernd Eichinger, directed by Tom Twyker, who also collaborated on the screenplay with Andrew Birkin and Bernd Eichinger. The lead role was played by Ben Wishaw, alongside renowned actors such as Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman. The film is essentially based on the original plot of the novel.

My own interpretation

My own interpretation refers to both the socio-critical side and the development of Grenouille's personality. The outside world and the inner life of the main character are mutually dependent and drive the plot forward. Both intertwine with each other in an interplay.

I divide the development, both of the personality and of the reactions to the outside world, into three parts: Childhood and adolescence until he leaves his hometown of Paris, the time in the cave as a transitional phase, and the final years.

From the beginning, Grenouille is characterized by a peculiarity. His unique sense of smell, as well as the non-existent inherent odor. These are characteristics through which he experiences rejection. His talent is, of course, innate, which means that he can not change it, nor is it a merit of his own. However, it is the reaction of the outside world that causes Grenouille's development to take its course and he develops thoughts that take place far from any humanity.

In this respect, the novel can be divided into three parts. In the first part, Grenouille experiences his peculiarity passively and rather unconsciously. Being born into a hostile world that rejects him is something he cannot change. As a child and as an adolescent, he has to accept this environment as it is. He does not experience his otherness consciously, but as a mirror through the others. The only person who recognizes his abilities and sees something special in him is Mrs. Gaillard, who hardly builds an emotional relationship with him. She raises the children for money. In his early adult years, Grenouille strives for recognition and finally finds a way to do so: his sense of smell is recognized as an outstanding ability by his teacher. In addition to recognition, Grenouille learns here for the first time about the power that these abilities give him. His master would have lost his business without him. Grenouille does not yet draw a consequence from this, even the first murder happens basically unconsciously. He is not even aware of the implications of murder, since the social rules do not seem to apply to him.

This unconsciousness changes during the years in the cave. In seclusion, without confrontation with others, Grenouille "pupates," so to speak, and becomes the mature personality who single-mindedly flies his plan in the last part. He takes the necessary steps to complete his life's work and now also consciously uses his manipulative skills. Even the final murder does not happen casually but requires some planning and deception.

Conclusion

Grenouille ends up becoming what other people have seen in him since the beginning of his life, an oddball and a monster. However, he turns the tables when he douses himself with his perfume. The reaction of those around him goes far beyond understanding or admiration. The crowd embraces Grenouille's peculiarity, which was previously considered repulsive and also broke basic social rules, and everyone falls into a state of intoxication while eating Grenouille up. Like Grenouille, then, they defy the basic rules of society.

The author thus diverts this symbolism of being consumed by one's own urges away from his main character and literally "gives" it to anyone, if only they are given enough reason to do so.

The question remains open whether a different, friendlier reaction to the environment of Grenouille would have changed anything about his behavior. Whether Grenouille would have developed into a murderer even if he had encountered love throughout his life. The author does not answer this question explicitly. He confines himself to present the development of the murderer as an interplay between the outside world and personality development.

Bibliography

Süskind, Patrick 1994: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, 1st edition, Diogenes. ISBN-10: 9783257228007
Klatt, Sabine, 2005: Interpretation of Patrick Süskind's novel "Perfume".
Jansen, Martina, 2012: "Perfume" and evil: Patrick Süskind's protagonist Jean Baptiste Grenouille.
Bernsmeier, Helmut 2017: Patrick Süskind, The Perfume; Philipp Reclam, ISBN 978-3-15-015451-9