Bibliography

[the_lady_lily]

Comments

[strange_complex]

I haven't read the novel of The Leopard, but I watched the film a while ago, and remember enjoying it for the same sort of evocative richness as you describe here. Plus it has Claudia Cardinale in it (see icon) - can't go wrong! I'm sure it won't capture everything the novel does, as films just can't in the time they have, but if you've enjoyed the novel I'm pretty sure you'll like the film.

[the_lady_lily]

Everyone (on Twitter, unsurprisingly!) who evangelised the book also evangelised the film, so I'm quite looking forward to it now.

[whatifoundthere]

Perfume was one of my favourite books in high school -- something about the "Grenouille can smell anything but does not smell like anything" aspect was a really interesting allegory for being an outcast, in a way that really spoke to me as a teenaged goth. I've wondered, since, whether the book would age well, and whether I'd find it as compelling now as I did then. So I'm glad you enjoyed it, since it suggests that my taste as a 19-year-old was perhaps not all bad! I'm especially curious about how the rather Silence of the Lambs-y treatment of women in the novel would bother me today. Did that stuff bother you?

[the_lady_lily]

The actual violence against women is depicted in quite stark, simple terms - it's not dwelt over lovingly, because it's a means to an end, a process - and I think that's why it didn't bother me too much, because it fitted perfectly into that sense of Grenouille's identity and way of viewing the world and everything in it as ultimately only about smell. Had it not had that character background I would have been a lot more disturbed, but context made it - well, not less creepy, but not gratuitous. I was wondering whether to have a moment of 'eek, horribly misogynistic book', but realised that actually, Grenouille's attitude to humans is completely misanthropistic to begin with, so viewing young girls in that way is part of a general attitude rather than a specific yuck. And, percentages speaking, it is actually only a tiny part of the novel, which again makes it feel relevant to the plot and less gratuitous. I am hoping this answers your question, as I feel as if I've rambled a bit...