In this blog post, we explore the meaning of innovation and freedom demanded by modern society through the characters in ‘Perfume’.
Published in 1985, Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume was translated and exported to 49 countries within a year of its release, selling over 20 million copies. Perfume is regarded as one of the greatest German novels of the 20th century, achieving phenomenal popularity, including a film adaptation. Subtitled The Story of a Murderer, this novel depicts the brief life of a scent ‘genius’ born with an extremely sensitive sense of smell, set in 18th-century Paris. Why did countless readers from the late 20th century to the early 21st century become so enthralled by this story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a character who was small and frail yet utterly wicked? It is likely because, despite being published in the modern era, the book captures the essence of contemporary society across time, while also sharply depicting the anguish and conflict of a genius.
However, I believe the true message the author intended to convey in this novel lies not with Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, but with his opposing character, Giuseppe Baldini. Baldini was someone who once yearned for genius-level abilities while simultaneously seeking to abandon materialistic values.
Today’s modern society is one saturated with materialism born of capitalism. To mitigate capitalism’s inherent limitations, corporations constantly create ‘trends’ through iconic figures of the era. People enthusiastically consume capital to ‘imitate’ these trends, striving not to fall behind. Capitalism began with the Industrial Revolution, which, simply put, was factory mass production. In other words, capitalism started with an inherent problem of oversupply due to its very origins in the Industrial Revolution. This surplus supply requires increased demand to be resolved, leading to the outbreak of colonial ventures and wars as prime examples. However, since the modern era, people have sought a new, non-destructive paradigm to resolve this, and that is precisely the ‘trend’. Trends resolve surplus supply by increasing momentary demand, while simultaneously continuously mitigating capitalism’s limitations through their continuity.
Trends are inherently ‘novel,’ meaning yesterday’s trend differs from today’s. This phenomenon of imitation starkly reveals that modern people must constantly desire and create new things, and furthermore, must compete. Here, creation must not merely be novel; it must add ‘innovation’ to existing trends to achieve differentiation from others. This differentiation originates from subjects superior to oneself. In other words, when defining a trend as the point where one person’s characteristics become the characteristics of the majority, the key agents driving this flow in modern society are geniuses who excel beyond others. They are the entities that ultimately drive novelty, responding to the demands of the modern world oriented toward change and development and its constituents. The majority of ordinary people admire these few geniuses, deify them, and find their own value in striving to resemble them.
Patrick Süskind’s novel tells us that trends in modern society are not merely phenomena of the present era. The ‘desire for innovation’ in modern society existed in the past as well, and the author begins the story by spotlighting a character who lags behind trends. Giuseppe Baldini, a perfume maker, is one of the prominent perfumers in Paris. He constantly strives to keep up with trends, yet he is not a genius who innovatively leads the trends of the era; he is an ‘ordinary man masquerading as a genius’. The sense of alienation arising from this contradiction brings deep anguish to Giuseppe Baldini. His anguish is well revealed in the soliloquy that appears in Chapter 10.
“Why on earth do people need a new perfume every season? Is it truly necessary? In the past, they were satisfied with the scent of violets or simple floral fragrances, and these scents might have changed only slightly once every ten years. For thousands of years, people have cherished frankincense, myrrh, balsam, oils, and dried spices.” (Chapter 10)
This soliloquy reaffirms that society at the time was also intensely focused on the issue of ‘trends’. However, Baldini substitutes the problem of his era with his own incompetence, revealing his inability to adapt to changing trends. What’s intriguing is that Giuseppe Baldini’s soliloquy isn’t vastly different from our reality today. In modern society, we too might be Giuseppe Baldinis, constantly compelled to produce ‘sensational’ products. In other words, he is not merely a figure of decline and failure due to personal incompetence. Giuseppe Baldini represents the anguish over ‘novelty’ in the modern and contemporary eras, embodying the epochal problems that span modernity and modernity. The reason we empathize with him at this point is that the helplessness and sense of crisis he feels under the pressure of his era still resonates with the emotions and shared experience of modern society’s members, who are still struggling with innovation.
However, his salvation comes through the genius Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Baldini is saved by Grenouille’s perfectly new creation, thereby regaining wealth and honor from society. The novel concludes by showing Baldini’s journey to success through acquiring external genius. From a modern perspective, he ascends from an imperfect being to a perfect one, inspiring others to imitate him and achieving innovation that meets the demands of his time. Yet such salvation is unlikely in real life. Had Baldini not met the genius Grenouille, how would his life have ended?
“God gives us both good times and hard times. But does God not expect us to overcome these hard times with manly resolve, rather than wallowing in despair and lamenting? (…) Giuseppe Baldini, act before it’s too late. Though your shop is failing, you can sell it at a good price. Spending your twilight years peacefully in Messina may not be your life’s goal, but it would be more honorable and in accordance with God’s will than a tragic downfall in Paris. I withdraw. Not in defeat, but freely!” (Chapter 11)
Baldini’s inner thoughts in Chapter 11 reveal his desire to escape the societal logic of ‘trends, imitation, genius’ and spend his remaining years in a new environment. He likely recognized genius as merely one value, not the defining totality of his worth, and calmly freed himself from that shackle.
Reading Perfume, I believe Patrick Süskind’s true message lies in ‘freedom’. Both the genius Grenouille and the fake genius Baldini meet their ends in misery. This misery and conclusion arise when they reduce societal values to their own personal values. To overcome this, we must escape the endless competitive structure of trends created by capitalist society. The solution is simply to abandon existing values. Only when we break free from society’s prescribed framework, recognize what we truly desire, and derive new value from that, will we finally be free. And we look forward to a society that seeks such values.
