i've been reading patrick süskind's perfume for a while, maybe about 6 months? i used to be able to read books in a few days but that was when i had very little responsibilities. anyways, i started annotating with this book as well, there are so many quotes with the most detailed descriptions i've enjoyed reading and wanted to share them. (no spoilers, promise!)
the way the ocean's scent is described:
"The sea smelled like a sail whose billows had caught up water, salt, and a cold sun. It had a simple smell, the sea, but at the same time it smelled immense and unique, so much so that Grenouille hesitated to dissect the odors into fishy, salty, watery, seaweedy, fresh-airy, and so on."
the way a human scent is described:
"... the odor of human being did not exist, any more than the human countenance. Every human being smelled different... and yet - there was a basic perfumatory theme to the odor of humanity, a rather simple one, by the way: a sweaty-oily, sour-cheesy, quite richly repulsive basic theme that clung to all humans equally..."
you can't escape scent:
"For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies and deceiving words. But they could not escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men."
once i finish reading (hopefully before the fall semester starts) i'll give my final thoughts on it, but so far so good!
xx, anika
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