Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

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 brillance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.

“And even knowing that to possess that scent he must pay the terrible price of losing it again, the very possession and the loss seemed to him more desirable than a prosaic renunciation of both. For he had renounced things all his life. But never once had he possessed and lost.” 

This book was not what I was expecting at all - in both a positive and negative way. The experience of this book was like wearing a good perfume, the beginning was strong and intoxicating, the middle faded and became bland, then the ending was refreshed with a new application and it became even stronger.

For a story about a murderer, it took a long time for the actual murderer part to set in - I almost gave up, especially as the middle part was so slow and boring. To be fair though, this was a very beautifully written story, even the slow parts. 

The ending was really good - it tied everything together and made the story complete, although it was also not without its strange parts too...

I'm glad I read this classic novel.