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Reader Reviews | |
Review by Chrissi (191203) Rating (7/10) Review
by Chrissi Whilst investigating all of the available odours in Paris, he comes across a smell that enchants him to the degree that he commits the most heinous of crimes to be able to absorb it, and working for a tanner, he becomes more useful when he contracts and survives anthrax but when he takes some skins to a parfumier he decides that he wishes to be an apprentice to him. He persuades the parfumier to take him on and proceeds to make him a wealthy man. When he wishes to leave he departs Paris and eventually lives in a cave, spending years wrapped in his library-like memory of smells. Upon emerging he realises that he has left no scent behind him that would indicate his presence in his cave. He returns to society to make a scent that would make people see him as one of them, concocting a gross mixture of things with which to scent himself to make him into one of the unwashed masses. As well as making this normal scent, he sets out to capture the essence of beauty, literally, murdering girls on the brink of womanhood and taking their scent. When he is finally caught the crowd want to hang him but he wears his latest scent, a scent so captivating that it makes the people whose young women he stole forgive him and he leaves a free man. I shan’t tell you the final twist to the story of this murderer but I was gob smacked and it is really quite appropriate that he should meet his end this way... I
have to say that although I cannot say that I really enjoyed this
book, it did hold a weird kind of fascination for me, and has
left quite an impression. It is not a nice story but is very evocative,
the descriptions are vivid and the story compelling, and although
it is not something that I would recommend lightly, I might suggest
it to someone, someday… |
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