The Content Reader

My local library has announced four meetings on the theme "Read the book - Watch the Film". I signed up for all of them, and yesterday was the first meeting discussing the book Perfume - The Story of a Murderer  by Patrick Süskind. The book was first published in 1985. I did read it around that time, but could not remember too much, so re-read it for this event.  "An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder. 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 bec...