Perfume: A story of murderer
Patrick Süskind
‘And yet, just as all great accomplishments of the spirit cast both shadow and lights, offering humankind vexation and misery along with their benefits...’
Dramatic and delicate at the same time, Perfume Is a polished ‘sacred manuscript’ in reverence of the destructive force of passion, in which comprehensive knowledge is conveyed in a masterful, elegant, undeniable manner, unraveling the legacy of the of vicious, yet infinite nature of humankind.
Through the hyperbolized approach of fiction, in a persuasive and compelling mastery conceives in a tale a naturalistic and startled ‘explication’ of passion – a vehicle in its invincible, supreme, overwhelming power, which, to be gratified, exceeds to the manifestation of a murder.
The great concept of the olfactory as a subject is an astonishing metaphor of the assumption that a force so dominant, enchanting, and enslaving is immanently invisible, inexplicable, and in its silent, subversive invasion, it obsesses the senses and excites men and women to unconsciousness and amnesia.
In a narrative build around the piteous faith of a single person, the story is, in fact, a multilayered chronicle of the enigmatic substance of existence, in which not only does the narrative portrays the personage of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille as an embodiment of a monstrous, unscrupulous, cunning value but also reveals the subtle, yet the convulsive depth of the scope of complexity of humans ambivalent moral principles, bestial fashion, and degradation.
A genius is gifted with a talent that raises him to the realms of the divine – and a talent that does not overcome the simple fundament of human – to be a human. At the same time, it is as if greatness always thrives under some demonic, supernatural force.
But is the acquirement of a triumph, a masterpiece, a compensation for love?
Denied since birth, mistreated, yet intimidating himself, Grenouille regards scent the root of his inferiority.
The lack of own scent and the ability to perform such a powerful alchemy metaphor his inhumane quality and reinforces the inferior sense of unacceptance – the same alchemy that purity, virginity, and beauty possess inherently and whose possession determines the murderer's victims – those ‘who inspire love’.
The ‘foster-mother’, the tanner, the perfumery owner, the marquis, the journeyman, and the widow, the father, are only a few figures whose archetypal potency nurtures the condition for certain human antinomies to crystalize.
An interweave of symbols of innocence and seduction, fragility and strength, temptation and punishment imply a universal aphorism about a faculty, that exerted out of love or out of hatred might transcend or destroy.
A great passion indulged in such faculty does not promise peace, relief, happiness, or determination - it is devastating when certain truth is faked, or masked. It might rule to an extent to deaden morality, shame, ethic. To reveal the most ecstatic, wild fantasies for some, the most ferocious for others.
And when villainy unmasks life, the truth demands a sacrifice.