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5345012 No.5345012 [Reply] [Original]

Picked this up on a whim, and it's fucking brilliant. Easily holds it's weight against greats like Lolita and The Magus. Why isn't it ever discussed on /lit/?

>> No.5345020

>Why isn't it ever discussed on /lit/?

It's not in Bloom's canon and it's not by some popular fraud like Murakami.

>> No.5345032

>>5345012
>Why isn't it ever discussed on /lit/?
Because it's good

>> No.5345040

>>5345012
Because it's written by a German author

>> No.5345057

>>5345040
>Because it's written by a German author

Oh, come on, this board is basically Nietzsche, Marx, Hermann Hesse, Hegel, Godel, Goethe, and Stirner.

>> No.5345095

>>5345012
>Perfume, Lolita, and The Magus
All three are in my top ten books. I stupidly wrote perfume off before reading it, after being given an addition that had this god-awful cover tricking me into thinking it was a YA novel. I later read that Bahnhof Zoo book, and about David Bowie shooting smack with Patrick Suskind and Patricia Highsmith, and thought there's no way that guy wold be writing YA. Like Lolita, it's now a book that I'll open anywhere and read random chapters.

>> No.5345112

>>5345095
Deceptive/misrepresentative editions of books are the best.
Sometimes I intentionally seek them out to give to friends/intimidate plebes on public transport.

>> No.5345176

It's mentioned all the time on /lit/. I read it because of all the hype and then was disappointed because, although it was decent, it was not nearly as good as everyone made it out to be.

>> No.5345188

I honestly quite liked it. It did something novel, was beautifully written, and also dat fookin ending was hilarious.

>> No.5345215
File: 1.21 MB, 1438x2244, perfume-1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5345215

>>5345095
>I stupidly wrote perfume off before reading it, after being given an addition that had this god-awful cover tricking me into thinking it was a YA novel.

This one?

>> No.5345231

Wow is that edition new? I remember wanting to buy it several years ago but could only find it from obscure publishers.

>> No.5345240
File: 229 KB, 400x612, penguinbooks_klaushaapaniemiperfume10.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5345240

>>5345231
This is the best cover.

>> No.5345276

>>5345215
Why are redheads so cute /lit/?

>> No.5345279

>>5345276
They are exotic.

>> No.5345282
File: 6 KB, 214x236, images.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5345282

>>5345276
I know, right.

>> No.5345298

>>5345276
You like them because they're always loser outcasts like yourself. True patricians like myself only like blondes, the real status symbol of bitchdom.

>> No.5345318

Is that that novel that Kurt Cobain said was his favorite book?

>> No.5345333

>>5345298
Asians are seldom blonde. Please tell me you aren't going for inferior Caucasian girls.

>> No.5345392

1. Sounds gawdawful
2. Murder

I don't care how pretty Lolita sounds, not read that either. Same with Stoner. I get the plot, glad people like it

>> No.5345413

>>5345392
Why do you think it sounds 'gawdawful'? and why do you refuse to read Lolita?

>> No.5345471

>>5345413
Because he refuses any possible outlet to slake his ephebophilic lust, in the vain hope that it makes him a better human being.

>> No.5345499

>>5345413
From what I've heard it's about a perfumer who murders women to make his scents. That sound absurd, but I guess psychopaths are allowed to be absurd. Wouldn't have known it was well written if not for the occasional /lit/ thread.

I know a lot about Lolita, and it all just sounds so creepy. Just not interested.

>>5345471
Projecting

>> No.5345510

>>5345499
>All just sounds too creepy
It's worth it though, it's well written and an excellent example of narrative-through-perspective

>projecting
Very true.

>> No.5345531

>>5345499
>I know a lot about Lolita, and it all just sounds so creepy.

Enjoy your mediocre life as a consequence of not stepping outside of your comfort zone.

>> No.5345736

>>5345499
>it's about a perfumer who murders women to make his scents. That sound absurd, but I guess psychopaths are allowed to be absurd.
But it's beautiful.

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”

“We are familiar with people who seek out solitude: penitents, failures, saints, or prophets. They retreat to deserts, preferably, where they live on locusts and honey. Others, however, live in caves or cells on remote islands; some-more spectacularly-squat in cages mounted high atop poles swaying in the breeze. They do this to be nearer God. Their solitude is a self-moritification by which they do penance. They act in the belief that they are living a life pleasing to God. Or they wait months, years, for their solitude to be broken by some divine message that they hope then speedily to broadcast among mankind.
Grenouille's case was nothing of the sort. There was not the least notion of God in his head. He was not doing penance or wating for some supernatural inspiration. He had withdrawn solely for his own pleasure, only to be near to himself. No longer distracted by anything external, he basked in his own existence and found it splendid. He lay in his stony crypt like his own corpse, hardly breathing, his heart hardly beating-and yet lived as intensively and dissolutely as ever a rake lived in the wide world outside.”

“In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys, the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries, and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. The rivers stank, the marketplaces stank, the churches stank, it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces.The peasant stank as did the priest, the apprentice as did his master’s wife, the whole of the aristocracy stank, even the king himself stank, stank like a rank lion, and the queen like an old goat, summer and winter”

>> No.5346355

>>5345020
>not by some popular fraud like Murakami.
Why is Murakami a fraud in your opinion? I liked Norwegian Wood, it reminded me a lot of Ctacher in the Rye

>> No.5346390

It's really disappointing that Suskind never wrote anything else. I read the Pigeon and it was awful.

>> No.5346421

Read "The Pigeon" next brah

>> No.5346429

>>5346390
Why did you think it was awful?

You're wrong btw

>> No.5346460

>>5345499
>I know a lot about Lolita, and it all just sounds so creepy.
>Reading for plot.
>mfw
>mfw when no face etc.

>> No.5346511

>>5345012
Agreed. You never think of your sense of smell the same way after that book.

>> No.5346805

>>5346355
hey anon, not that guy but Catcher is my favorite novel and I've read it every year since seventh grade, what aspects of Norwegian wood remind you of it? I'm interested in picking it up based on that alone

>> No.5346829

>>5346429
It was boring and lacked color. The central conflict was trite.

>> No.5346896
File: 1.23 MB, 208x156, Data laff.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5346896

>>5346460
>Reading exclusively for prose

>> No.5348217

>>5346896
>Writing off books before reading them because the plot features a protagonist that you regard as unsavory.

>> No.5348623

>>5345095
Wait what book about Suskind slammin' sope with David Bowie?!!

>> No.5348629

Suskind will never write another novel, so I have heard.

>Sadfrogthing.jpeg

The Pigeon is quite good as well! Perfume, for me, was sublime. I was able to quit smoking for several months because I wanted to experience the world that the novel introduced me to.

Oh and it seems lately Perfume is discussed rather often here.

>> No.5348635

>>5345499
>that pleb state of mind

>> No.5348663
File: 30 KB, 300x213, 3a69042e9a6cdf7e7189f3ed82667b50.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5348663

>>5348623
By the sound of it he's talking about, "Wir Kinder Vom Banhoff Zoo," a true story of a junkie German Teenager. The author was obsessed with David Bowie, and he met her, decided to star in the film version, and did the entire soundtrack.

"When she was 12 years old, she began smoking hashish with a group of friends who were slightly older at a local youth club. They gradually began experimenting with stronger drugs such as LSD and various forms of pills and she ended up trying heroin. By the time she was 14, she was heroin-dependent and a prostitute, mainly at West Berlin's then-largest train station Bahnhof Zoo. During this period, she became part of a group of teenage drug-users and sex workers of both sexes."

"Between 1982 and 1985, Felscherinow lived in Zurich in the Diogenes publishing house. During this time she met Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Patricia Highsmith and Patrick Süskind. She explained that she "lived between literature stars and the heroin scene" and described Platzspitz park in Zurich as a "Disney World for junkies."

Can't find anything about Bowie and Suskind shooting up together, guess you'd have to read the book, but she did hang out with William S. Burroughs for a while.

>> No.5348692

Okay, she wrote a book about being a junky prostitute. David bowie liked the book and came to meet her. She lived in a publishing house, immersed in the 'heroin scene' and met famous junky authors like Suskind. It isn't that hard to imagine that maybe Suskind and Bowie met and both shot up together, but, and this is a big but, how did she write about it if she met Suskind and Bowie while riding the success of the book? She wrote the book, then met them afterwards, so how can it be in the book?

>> No.5348704

>>5348663
>>5348692

>> No.5348729
File: 150 KB, 370x525, christiane_f.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5348729

>>5348663
>"Wir Kinder Vom Banhoff Zoo,

>The narrative of the book is in the first person, from Felscherinow's viewpoint, but was written by the journalists functioning as ghostwriters.
>Felschernirow continues to receive monthly royalty payments of €2,000 (US$2,720) for the book

Wow. She gets nearly three thousand dollars a month from a book she didn't write.

>>5348692
>She wrote the book, then met them afterwards, so how can it be in the book?
She gave thousands of interviews, so probably one of those. This Vice one talks about her living with Nick Cave, so I'm sure there's one about her talking about Suskind and Bowie.

"When you were back in Germany you ended up going out with Alexander Hacke living with Nick Cave, right?"
"Oh, he was a friend of a friend and he used my place as a hideout because he had a really bad problem with heroin back in the 80s. He didn't know where else to go, because the media gave him no privacy. He stayed at mine for a couple of months."
--http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/christiane-felscherinow-interview

>> No.5349015

Ok, we all like perfume, but what about "The Pigeon"? That book was easily another 10/10.

>> No.5349023

>>5345057
> Nietzsche, Marx, Hermann Hesse, Hegel, [...] and Stirner
only discussed in le ebin meem threads. Nobody on lit ever read anything by any of them.

>Goethe
every once in a while someone wants to discuss him

>> No.5349087
File: 294 KB, 600x952, Patrick-Sueskind-Das-Parfuem.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5349087

>>5345215
>>5345240
Original german cover is much better

>> No.5349180
File: 177 KB, 670x500, 2013-02-05 19.18.33.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5349180

>>5349087
A challenger appears.

>> No.5349184
File: 79 KB, 600x450, kirton_perfume1.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5349184

>>5349180

>> No.5349278
File: 38 KB, 600x412, 280cee2eb09da05be2537899704e42af.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5349278

>>5349087
>>5349180
>>5349184
ahem. Behold the best perfume cover, ladies.

>> No.5350769

Whoa. I saw a film of the same name about a year ago and had no idea of was an adaptation. Has anyone hear experienced both and could compare the two?

>> No.5350790

>>5350769
The movie is alright IMO. Some would say it was amazing but to me, when compared to the novel, it falls short. The novel introduced a whole new world to me through its language and prose. The movie is simply about the plot which is fine and dandy but the real treasure of this novel is the language and prose.

>> No.5350802

>>5345012
because its train station literature

>> No.5350832
File: 88 KB, 851x315, banner-valentineperfume.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5350832

>>5350769
I own both. The film is visually beautiful and does a fine job of conveying a very abstract sense, but leaves out several major events and tightens up the murder plot out of necessity. It's a worthy adaptation, but no replacement for the novel.

>> No.5350991 [DELETED] 
File: 87 KB, 304x475, 3486989.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5350991

I just bought this. Seller said it's the same ISBN as the one with the lips cover. It's the same version right, everywhere online all I see is the lips cover. I bought this version because I liked the cover, but I hope I didn't get sheckled into buying a shitty or abridged edition or something.