냄새에 관한 천재적인 능력을 타고났지만 정작 자신은 아무 체취를 지니지 못한 주인공 그르누이는 지상 최고의 향수를 만들고자 하는데... 최고의 향기를 위해 스물다섯 차례의 살인도 마다하지 않는 그의 이야기가 악마적이면서도 천진스럽게 펼쳐진다. An odorless baby found orphaned in a Paris gutter in 1738 grows to become a monster obsessed with his perfect sense of smell and a desire to capture, by any means, the ultimate scent that will make him human. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 20,000 first printing. An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind’s classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion-his sense of smell-leads to murder. In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift-an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”-the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity. Translated from the German by John E. Woods.