7 replies to this topic

[Jade Hawkins]

Has anyone read Perfume by Patrick Suskind for IB English HL? It's received mixed reviews in my class, but I absolutely love it. It's so different and creepy and brillant! I'm anxious to write about it and hope we're allowed to use this in our world literature papers.
This makes me LOL:
"He would be able to create a scent that was not merely human but superhuman, an angel's scent...they would love him...love him to the point of insanity...He would be the omnipotent god of scent...He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men...his mood was not euphoric as he formed his plans to rule mankind...he asked himself why he wanted to do it at all. And he said to himself  that he wanted to do it because he was evil, thoroughly evil. And he smiled as he said it and was content." (155)

[Ezak]

We read it in swedish, while there may be some differences between the language used I think I could still say that I read the same book.

I liked it, it was refreshing with the evil genius that Grenouille was. Evil and amoral all the way, a true egoist that had no sense for other human beings.

we thouroughly discussed wether it was correct to call Grenouille human at all or if beast suited him better. A large part of the class also thought that the execution process was an excellent parallell to hitler and what he did to Germany. Did you end up with the same conclusion?

[Sabs44]

Jade Hawkins, on Nov 09, 2011 - 03:01, said:

Has anyone read Perfume by Patrick Suskind for IB English HL? It's received mixed reviews in my class, but I absolutely love it. It's so different and creepy and brillant! I'm anxious to write about it and hope we're allowed to use this in our world literature papers.
This makes me LOL:
"He would be able to create a scent that was not merely human but superhuman, an angel's scent...they would love him...love him to the point of insanity...He would be the omnipotent god of scent...He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men...his mood was not euphoric as he formed his plans to rule mankind...he asked himself why he wanted to do it at all. And he said to himself  that he wanted to do it because he was evil, thoroughly evil. And he smiled as he said it and was content." (155)

This made you LOL? I think it's brilliant and makes me think a lot!

[solesoli]

Yeah I liked it as well. What I found amusing was how Suskind dealt with the characters. Most authors, when they're done with one character, they ship them off to some random place OR just stop mentioning them in the next chapters. Suskind just kills them off. Effective, but a little twisted.

[vira.may]

I read this for fun (so not as part of our IB course) and I really liked it as well!

[SushiMonstar]

Enjoyed reading it in class in English A1. I think it has a great, creepy story and I liked Suskind's narrative style and technique.  ;D

[mademoiselle bovary]

“When they finally did dare it, at first with stolen glances and then candid ones, they had to smile. They were uncommonly proud. For the first time they had done something out of Love."

Enough said. This line absolutely makes me shiver no matter how many times I read it. The whole books is genius, but the ending is beyond words. Made me stare at the last page for a good ten minutes unable to believe what I just read

[thehaikubandit]

Love it, it was one of my favourite books and then I found out we were doing it for A1. I love the use of language, I mean, scent is something so hard to describe and he does such a beautiful job, really contrasting to the violent and evil character.