Episode 456: Books Packed!

I know I'm a bit late on this, but I've just finished reading Patrick Süskind's Perfume. It strikes me as a very sensual book, in the vein of books like Joanne Harris's Chocolat or Andrew Lindsay's The Breadmaker's Carnival, except it chooses to concentrate exclusively on the sense of smell and what it evokes. John E. Woods's translation is a breezy read, and towards the end, the unravelling of the plot is chillingly inexorable. Now I feel like seeing the film. Incidentally, the video for Mylène Farmer's 'Dégénération' appears to be conceptually inspired by the climactic orgy that Grenouille inspires in the novel. The song itself is the sort of techno-inflected pop that I really like, but I don't think I'm about to rush out and get the album it's on, even if YouTube has proved that the other songs are pretty much in the same vein. Have also packed the books I'm bringing back, and of the ones I was deliberating over, I'm only bringing Only Revolutions, as I managed to find a pdf version of House Of Leaves, which was terribly exciting. It's a proper, scanned version of the book, painstaking work. I am, however, now bringing Elliot Perlman's Three Dollars and The Reasons I Won't Be Coming.