A short life of the author
Patrick Süskind (born 26 March 1949) is a German novelist, screenwriter, and playwright who became internationally famous with a single book — Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Das Parfum: Die Geschichte eines Mörders, 1985) — and then retreated into almost total silence. Perfume has sold over twenty million copies, been translated into more than fifty languages, and been adapted into a major film (2006, directed by Tom Tykwer). Since its publication, Süskind has published only a handful of short works, granted no interviews, allowed no photographs, and made no public appearances. He is one of the most reclusive writers alive, and the mystery of his withdrawal has become part of his legend.
Life
Süskind was born in Ambach, Bavaria, on Lake Starnberg, south of Munich. His father, Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind, was a journalist and writer who worked for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Süskind studied medieval and modern history at the University of Munich and at the University of Aix-en-Provence. He worked briefly as a screenwriter — co-writing scripts for the popular German television series Monaco Franze and Kir Royal with Helmut Dietl — before the enormous success of Perfume made other employment unnecessary.
Perfume
Perfume (1985) tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born in a Paris fish market in 1738, who possesses the most extraordinary sense of smell in human history but has no personal body odour of his own. Grenouille becomes apprenticed to a perfumer, masters the art of extracting scent, and then begins murdering young women in order to distil and preserve their personal essence. The novel ends with a scene of transcendent horror and ecstasy that is among the most remarkable set pieces in postwar European fiction.
The book operates simultaneously as a historical novel, a crime thriller, a Künstlerroman (artist’s development novel), and a philosophical parable about the relationship between genius and monstrosity. Süskind’s research into eighteenth-century perfumery is meticulous, and his ability to render olfactory experience in language — to make the reader smell — is the novel’s most celebrated achievement. The opening paragraphs, describing the stench of eighteenth-century Paris, are frequently cited as one of the great beginnings in modern fiction.
Perfume was a publishing sensation. It spent years on the German bestseller lists, became the most internationally successful German novel since The Tin Drum, and was embraced by readers who rarely read literary fiction. Critics were more divided: some admired its formal perfection and narrative inventiveness; others found it cold, schematic, and morally evasive. The novel’s debt to earlier German literature — to E. T. A. Hoffmann, to Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, to the Romantic tradition of the demonic artist — is widely noted.
Other Works
The Double Bass (Der Kontrabaß, 1981) — a one-act monologue play about an orchestral double bass player who rants about his instrument, his orchestra, his life, and his unrequited love for a soprano. It was Süskind’s first published work and was successfully staged throughout the German-speaking world. The play is a comedy of resentment and thwarted ambition that anticipates the obsessive single-mindedness of Grenouille.
The Pigeon (Die Taube, 1987) — a novella about a Parisian bank guard whose rigidly ordered life is disrupted when a pigeon appears in the corridor outside his room. The story is a Kafkaesque comedy about the fragility of routine and the terror of the unexpected. It confirmed Süskind’s gift for psychological compression.
The Story of Mr Sommer (Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer, 1991) — a children’s novella, illustrated by Sempé, about a boy growing up in a Bavarian village and the mysterious Mr Sommer, who walks endlessly through the countryside. It is Süskind’s most personal and gentle work.
On Love and Death (Über Liebe und Tod, 2006) — a brief essay on the relationship between love and death in Western literature and philosophy.
The Silence
Süskind’s refusal to participate in literary culture is nearly total. He has not published a novel since 1985. He does not give readings, attend festivals, or respond to letters from journalists. Photographs of him are almost nonexistent — the few that circulate are decades old. He reportedly lives in Munich and Paris, writing screenplays and, possibly, fiction that he does not publish. Whether this represents an artistic choice, a psychological condition, or simply a rational response to the absurdities of literary fame remains unknown.
Critical Standing
Perfume is widely regarded as one of the essential European novels of the late twentieth century — a book that succeeds both as popular entertainment and as serious literature. Süskind’s other works are accomplished but minor. His reputation rests on one book, and it is enough.
Collecting Süskind
Das Parfum (1985, Diogenes Verlag, Zurich) in the original German first edition brings $200–$500. The first English edition — Perfume (1986, Hamish Hamilton, London, translated by John E. Woods) — brings $100–$300 in dust jacket. Der Kontrabaß (1981, Diogenes) is scarce in first edition. Süskind does not sign books, making any authenticated signature extremely valuable.