Jeremy ’s Reviews > Perfume: The Story of a Murderer > Status Update

I thank you, Jeremy Gregoire, for being what you are.
The nose says this to himself. Regardless of the context, it’s not a wrong thing to say to oneself.
You lived abroad. You traveled through Germany, to HK a few times. Be thankful and the humble version of confident.

There are sense that linger for decades. A cupboard rubbed with musk, a piece of leather drenched with cinnamon oil, a cedar chest: they all possess virtually eternal olfactory life. While other things, floral scents for example evaporate within a few hours, if they are exposed to the air in a pure unbound form.

He sat there and did not yield to his desire, although it was strong. because that desire was an old one of his, to run away and hide in a cave. He knew about that already. What he did not yet know was what it was like to possess something. The very possession and the loss seemed to him more desirable than a prosaic renunciation of both. He had renounced things all his life. But never once has he possessed and lost.

He dared not intoxicate himself with that scent prematurely. He had to throw himself into his work. He had to broaden his knowledge and the techniques of his craft in order to be equipped for the time of harvest.
What Jeremy, is distracting you from this kind of dedication?

Again he closed his eyes. The scents of the garden descended upon him, their contours as precise and clear as the colored bands of a rainbow.

But he was brave. He fought the fear of knowing with a fear of not knowing…

128-129 what would this passage look like set to Music Jeremy wonders

And so passes Baldini. Seems everyone that comes into contact with nose guy dies or is ruined somehow.
Baldini: the great hypocrite like us all. Pacts and vows made bringing sound sleep but then opportunity strikes the next day or just not the will to go through with something and back to square one: woe is me.

In learning the system: he could simply sit himself down at the table and write the formula straight out. He had learned to extend the journey from his mental notion of a scent to the finished perfume by way of writing down the formula. The more he mastered the tricks and tools of the trade, the better he was able to express himself in the conventional language of perfume.
This is what you must do in music, JG.

As the perfume shop becomes famous almost overnight now, it’s reminiscent of Little Shop. The alien plant draws in the customers as the owner takes full credit. Baldini knows the craft enough to be enormously successful now that he has the abominable nose as apprentice. But at what cost?