Paris in the eighteenth century. Jean Baptiste Grenouille had a rather inauspicious birth in the slums amidst the stinking fish stalls--left for dead amongst the refuse. Imagine the fetid, miasma of Paris. Imagine having such a razor sharp sense of smell that each and every thing, each and every person has a distinct odor and you can peel away layer after layer of smells, and there you have Jean Baptiste Grenouille. I'm not sure how to characterize this book. It's a weird sort of fable or a fairy tale gone very, very wrong.
There is nothing to recommend Jean Baptiste. He is a character without an ounce of humanity. It's hard to even have pity on him for having such a horrible childhood. He was unloved and misunderstood by all who knew him. But even if he hadn't been I can't imagine him being any other way than how he turned out. Although he himself had no odor, not a trace of anything to distinguish him from anyone else, he could smell everything. And everyone. Shall I describe how humans smell? I think you'd rather me not. After reading the descriptions I wanted nothing more than to take a long, hot shower. But let's keep in mind that the 18th-century was a stinky time.
Jean Baptiste had two problems. The first--Jean Baptiste caught a whiff of something so inexpressively beautiful, so sublime, he had to possess it. The smell of a young girl.
"The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon, unmistakably clear, and yet as before very delicate and very fine. Grenouille felt his heart pounding, and he knew that it was not the exertion of running that had set it pounding, but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent. He tried to recall something comparable, but had to discard all comparisons. The scent had a freshness, but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates, not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles, nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water...and at the same time it had warmth, but not as bergamot, cypress, or musk has, or jasmine or daffodils, not as rosewood has or iris...This scent was a blend of both, of evanescence and substance, not a blend, but a unity, although slight and frail as well, and yet solid and sustaining, like a piece of thin, shimmering silk...and yet again not like silk, but like pastry soaked in honey-sweet milk--and try as he would he couldn't fit those two together: milk and silk! The scent was inconceivable, indescribable, could not be categorized in any way--it really ought not to exist at all. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day. Grenouille followed it, his fearful heart pounding, for he suspected that it was not he who followed the scent, but the scent that had captured him and was drawing him irresistibly to it."
He will indeed possess it. And in so doing, he will become a murderer. One without the least bit of conscience. His second problem is one I've already mentioned. Jean Baptiste himself has no smell. The convergence of these two problems will bring about his downfall, but not before he wreaks a certain amount of destruction first. You see he will create a smell, an essence like that of the young girl--a smell of perfection and beauty. And everyone will love him, at least that's what he thinks he wants. He wants to be able to walk down the street and not be seen as some sort of oddity, perhaps not be noticed at all--to be accepted as just one like so many others.
I liked this book a lot. But it is an odd book--very disconcerting to read really. Although you know what Grenouille wants and what he does to achieve it, I still never felt like I knew him, which might actually be a good thing. Maybe there was just not much there to know. There is not much dialogue in the book. It is nearly all descriptive passages and you do get a very clear sense of time and place. It is definitely one of the more unique books and certainly one of the most unique characters in literature that I've ever come across.
I watched the movie over the weekend. If you've read the book and think it is creepy, the movie is even creepier. Imagine seeing what I've just described translated onto the big screen! The adaptation was very faithful to the book by the way.