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Grenouille (French for frog) is born in Paris, France in 1738 his mother is almost immediately tried for previous infanticide leaving him an orphan. He is fostered but is a difficult solitary child and eventually apprenticed to a tanner. Unknown to the world around him, he has a remarkable sense of smell, and an extraordinary ability to discern odors as a result he can perform apparently magical feats such as identifying bad vegetables by the worms they contain, or visitors as they approach the house, and can navigate in total darkness by the smell of objects around him. On a day when he had memorized nearly all the smells of the city, he is surprised by a smell quite unlike the dirty, coarse ones he is familiar with. Entranced, he traces it with his nose, and finds that the source of this scent is a young, virginal girl just passing puberty. Feeling her scent to be a revelation and that he must possess it, he kills her and stays with her body until the scent has left it. In his quest to learn more of the art of scent-making, he becomes apprenticed to a once great perfumer, Baldini, and proves himself a wunderkind although this is not revealed to anyone except Baldini. Baldini eventually reveals to him that there are techniques other than distillation that can be used to preserve a wider range of odours, which can be found in the heartland of the perfumier's craft, in the region of Grasse, in the French Riviera... |
Before sleep |
Autumn |
To my acquaintances |
Not easy to read |
Classic modern |
Less than 10$ |
At least one month |