Das Parfum

Patrick Süskind, born in Ambach on Lake Starnberg in 1949, studied medieval and modern history in Munich and Aix-en-Provence and earned his living by writing screenplays. A rare masterpiece of contemporary prose, a densely spun, psychologically sophisticated tale reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith's early plays, but whose artistry harks back to the novellistic style of the great European narrative tradition. In the eighteenth century, a man lived in France who was one of the most ingenious and despicable figures of this era, which was not short of ingenious and despicable figures. His story will be told here. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and if his name, unlike the names of other ingenious villains such as de Sades, Saint-Justs, Fouchés, Bonapartes, etc., If his name has fallen into oblivion today, it is certainly not because Grenouille was inferior to these more famous dark men in terms of arrogance, contempt for humanity, immorality, in short, godlessness, but because his genius and his sole ambition were confined to an area that leaves no trace in history: the ephemeral realm of odours. At the time we are talking about, there was a stench in the cities that we modern people can hardly imagine. The streets stank of manure, the backyards stank of urine, the stairwells stank of rotten wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of rotten cabbage and mutton fat; the unventilated parlours stank of ... .