What Makes a Novel Unputdownable?
"Perfume, The Story of a Murderer” by Patrick Suskind
What Makes a Novel Unputdownable?
Book lovers may select a different book characteristic to answer this question but all might agree that a truly unputdownable book has a “you’ve got to read it to know it” quality to it. The novel Perfume, The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind falls into this category.
For whatever it is, the “it factor” surely includes story idea. For Perfume, the story idea is as strange as it is effective. The book asks - what might happen to a person who has an uncanny sense of smell but who has no personal odor? And then what happens to that person when he realizes that he can smell absolutely everything else in the world to a magnification of 1000 degrees but he cannot smell his own body?
Patrick Suskind answers these questions in his novel, Perfume, originally published in Germany in the German language (Diogenes) in 1985 and then translated and released by Knopf in 1986. It continues to sell well to the delight, if not horror, of readers today.
The book is fiction but it reads like true crime. It is so well-written that the story itself takes second place to the writing, where each elegant sentence is more beautiful than the last. The novel is effectively written in third person narrator point of view. The impassive narrator expertly tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille from his birth to the place in the novel where we part ways with him. (no spoilers)
How would a person who is born in horrendous conditions and given no love, but with the unique ability to smell everything except himself, function in the world? With that premise, that unique starting point, Suskind takes us through a gripping, suspenseful, horrific tale, leaving the reader to bask in the horrible and yet compelling story of the main character Grenouille and everyone with whom Grenouille comes into contact.
From a storytelling perspective, the narration is top-notch. The narrator is entertaining from beginning to end, impassively sharing the adventures of Grenouille as if they could happen everyday to anyone. The book material is NOT commonplace, however. I warn you, in reading it, that you will need to free up some brain space, for you will be thinking about it for weeks, months, maybe even years to come. (don’t believe me? read what Kurt Cobain said about Perfume below) The reader is compelled to know what happens to Grenouille and then forced to contemplate what the hell they just read.
Fun Facts about “Perfume”
Perfume was translated into 49 languages and sold more than 20 million copies and counting (Wikipedia) since its German release in 1985.
The novel was translated into English by John E. Woods and won the PEN Translation Prize in 1987
A movie version starring Ben Whishaw (Black Doves) and the late Alan Rickman is titled Perfume: the story of a murderer and was released in 2006.
The character Grenouille may have been based on the true crime killer, Spain’s Manuel Blanco Romasanta.
Kurt Cobain revealed in one of his final interviews that he had read Perfume over 10 times and could relate to Grenouille’s distain for humans. Yikes!
“Perfume” has had an amazing number of book covers (over 500) made for it. Check out this link at librarything where many of its covers are uploaded. After you read the book, it might be fun to pick out the cover that you think most captures the essence of the book.
Question for the Authors
What makes YOUR book unputdownable?
Can you imagine YOUR readers thinking about your book after reading it for days on it?
What are some of the emotions that you can imagine your book evoking in your readers?