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May. 27th, 2015 05:22 pm
Scent of a dove woman
I would probably have finished Parfum about a week or so earlier if I hadn't already seen the movie and thus been able to anticipate the major plot points. It's written well enough not to suffer from spoilers, but this does make rushing to read the next chapter less pressing. Well, perhaps the ending is less shocking the second time around. I managed to forget the climax until I was right on top of it, though.
Only two things about it really bothered me. The first of these was a middle sequence which doesn't feature in the film at all. Supposedly, the protagonist hides out in cave surviving only on water dripping down a cliff face and the occasional dead bird or reptile. For seven years. And then when decides to descend, he manages to do it without dying despite the fact that he'd be suffering from scurvy, pyorrhoea, marasmus, and god only knows what else. For some reason, I can swallow the conceit of being able to sniff out an individual human being from a mile away in a city of half a million but not this. Given the folkloric resonance of "seven years", I kept wondering if there was some allegorical dimension I was missing, but as far as I can see making it a believable six months would've detracted nothing from the overall work.
The other was the heterosexism. It's not so obvious in the film; presumably Grenouille is seeking out female victims because he's underlying heterosexual (despite not having any sort of recognisably normal sexual expression). During the big orgy scene, there's too much going on to tell whether all the couplings are opposite-sex or not. But Süskind makes very explicit in the book his narrow definition of attraction. Grenouille's perfumes make women want to hump him and men want to be him. I mean, yeah, he wrote this in Bavaria in 1985. But 1985 is late in Europe not to be acknowledging same-sex attraction in literature--particularly in a book that's not shy about trotting out incest or cannibalism for more than just shock value.
Two weeks ago, I was struck by the need to read some Catalan again but all I had handy was Quell merdé hurrible de via Merulana, which is rather tough going for someone so out of practice. It didn't take me too much searching, however, to uncover some books I bought in Barcelona in 1991--part two of the Antologia de contes catalans published by Edicions62 and my well-worn copy of La placa del Diamant by Mercè Rodoreda. Kind of a mystery to me why I never finished reading the latter despite making two attempts. I'm chugging along now though, and not having to look up too too many words, albeit way more than I'd like to.
Only two things about it really bothered me. The first of these was a middle sequence which doesn't feature in the film at all. Supposedly, the protagonist hides out in cave surviving only on water dripping down a cliff face and the occasional dead bird or reptile. For seven years. And then when decides to descend, he manages to do it without dying despite the fact that he'd be suffering from scurvy, pyorrhoea, marasmus, and god only knows what else. For some reason, I can swallow the conceit of being able to sniff out an individual human being from a mile away in a city of half a million but not this. Given the folkloric resonance of "seven years", I kept wondering if there was some allegorical dimension I was missing, but as far as I can see making it a believable six months would've detracted nothing from the overall work.
The other was the heterosexism. It's not so obvious in the film; presumably Grenouille is seeking out female victims because he's underlying heterosexual (despite not having any sort of recognisably normal sexual expression). During the big orgy scene, there's too much going on to tell whether all the couplings are opposite-sex or not. But Süskind makes very explicit in the book his narrow definition of attraction. Grenouille's perfumes make women want to hump him and men want to be him. I mean, yeah, he wrote this in Bavaria in 1985. But 1985 is late in Europe not to be acknowledging same-sex attraction in literature--particularly in a book that's not shy about trotting out incest or cannibalism for more than just shock value.
Two weeks ago, I was struck by the need to read some Catalan again but all I had handy was Quell merdé hurrible de via Merulana, which is rather tough going for someone so out of practice. It didn't take me too much searching, however, to uncover some books I bought in Barcelona in 1991--part two of the Antologia de contes catalans published by Edicions62 and my well-worn copy of La placa del Diamant by Mercè Rodoreda. Kind of a mystery to me why I never finished reading the latter despite making two attempts. I'm chugging along now though, and not having to look up too too many words, albeit way more than I'd like to.