Short summary

Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is about the genius Jean-Baptiste Grenouille who has no smell of his own. Driven by his desire to develop a superhuman perfume to use on himself and give himself a smell, he becomes the murderer of numerous women.

Grenouille has been without body odor since birth. He barely speaks and has a particularly keen sense of smell. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille spends most of his childhood in the orphanage of Madame Gaillard. She sells him to the tanner Grimal, who in turn sells him after a few years to the perfumer Giuseppe Baldini.

Giuseppe Baldini uses Grenouille’s extraordinary talent for his business and makes him his journeyman. Grenouille learns various techniques for obtaining fragrances from Baldini. With a journeyman's certificate, he leaves the perfumer and spends the next seven years in a cave. There he discovers that he has no scent of his own and decides to create a superhuman perfume.

Grenouille reaches the town of Grasse where he learns from Madame Arnulfi more methods for obtaining fragrances. He begins secretly killing innocent women to capture their scents, which he needs for his irresistible perfume.

The final component of the fra...