By Its Cover: Perfume

Before we start our reviews, we would just like to announce that this is our 100th post!  We're so happy for our readers and hope you stay with us to post 1000 and beyond.

Yesterday, we reviewed Patrick Suskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, so today, we're reviewing its cover!

(I first read this book before our blog existed, and I cannot accurately recall my first impressions, so this is less of a before-and-after evaluation, and more of just... an evaluation.)

This is the cover on the copy that I read, and was the first-edition cover in 1985. This is a portion of the painting Jupiter and Antiope by Antoine Watteau, which I did not know off the top of my head. It depicts a murdered woman (though, for all you can tell, she might be sleeping, albeit slightly awkwardly).

It fits the setting of the novel, in that it looks like it's from the 1700s, and it looks French.

It depicts a (dead) woman, which is appropriate, because that is our protagonist's main focus. Actually, her scent is, but that's next to impossible to express visually, so this will have to do.

This was the cover of my book, which, as you can see, is VERY different from the version that Alex had.  When I first saw it, it reminded me of a dance, of movement, of beauty.  If you think about it, it's very fitting for the book.  Putting all those scents together, or even smelling everything he smells, is very much like a dance, an endless movement of smells.  The smell he tries to capture is one of ultimate beauty, the ultimate scent.  It's something completely unlike anything he's ever smelt before.

While I haven't read the book before this, I have seen the movie, which follows very well to the book.  So looking at this cover, without connecting it to the events in the book, was a little impossible for me.