Monday, March 17, 2008

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

My brother almost forgot to give this to me for Christmas ("Oh yeah, it's Christmas today"). I saw the movie sometime in October and was impressed, so I figured having the book wouldn't be a bad idea.

I got the book for Christmas, and it sat, shrink-wrapped, on my bookshelf until Saturday. I was doing some cleaning and picked it up, figuring I'd read the first few pages. Then I realized how short the chapters were and figured maybe I'd go for a few chapters. Nearly two hundred pages later, I finally set it down. I picked it up again on Sunday and finished it off.

Some points:
1. If I go long enough without reading anything just for fun, when I finally do pick up a novel I tend to tear through it.
2. Short chatpers can really be effective.
3. Having a flawed main character is one thing, calling your main character a "monster" outright is another.
4. Pulling off a "monster" as a main character is tricky, but it can be done - and excellently well, to boot.

The movie differs from the book only slightly and the tone of one is well-matched to the tone of the other. This case is an example of movie makers doing it right, and the film's use of color fills in well for the book's description of scent, essentially conveying the same feeling even though they do it different ways. Very cool. I'm not often impressed by movie adaptations of books, but I'd say this is one of my favorites: both in its own right, and by way of holding true to the novel being portrayed

2 comments:

Jenny Maloney said...

Oh my goodness...

So, I saw the movie and wished I'd read the book first. Shane and I turned to each other and said, basically, "Didn't see that one coming." and "Ew."

Mishell said...

Thank you for reminding me of this book. I, too, wanted to read it, but I keep forgetting about it when I'm in Barnes and Noble. So it's good, huh? (And I agree with you Jenny...Ew!)