Any reader of Perfume is struck by the amount of detail concerning the perfumer's art that Suskind includes in the narrative: readers learn about maceration, enfleurage, lavage and various olfactory shelf-lives. Can you think of another work of fiction that takes its readers deeply into a trade, an occupation or a practice in the same rich way that Suskind does with perfuming? Identify the work and comment on why its author would take us so deeply into the pursuit at hand.
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The first work of fiction that popped into my mind for this post is Herman Melville's Moby Dick. I read every detailed page of this senior year, and while I can recall action scenes and interesting dialogue, I also recall many chapters where Melville shared his overwhelming knowledge of whales and the profession of whaling. I think that there was an element of doing such a thing to inform the reader, for the average person does not fully understand this dangerous job. In the same vein, much of what Melville does symbolically is centered around Ishmael's journey out at sea, and to understand his job is to better realize the deeper issues surrounding the story. Likewise in Perfume, there is no question that the reader could catch on without schooling in the making of scents, however, in understanding the detail, the overarching ideas and emotions come through so much clearer. While I hate to simplify this much, it is true that often literature comes through like a giant metaphor, and when people do not get the first half, what it really means will be as much of a mystery as whaling or perfume-making.
ReplyDeleteCatherine Hart
Larry's Party, by Carol Shields, is another novel where an occupation is integral to defining the main character, and is essential to the story as a whole. Larry Weller, the main character, is a florist turned maze-maker. The book goes into great detail to explain Larry's fascination with hedge mazes, and all of the design and care that goes into the process. More than simply being his occupation, the hedge maze becomes an analogy in the novel for Larry's seemingly random wandering through life and relationships. The the novel itself, which is essentially Larry's biography, takes on the structure of the maze, as Larry's life constantly takes "turns", and his goals often require him to head in a different "direction" than he would expect. Just as scent and perfume-making is the major theme of Grenouile's character and the novel Perfume, the detail paid to hedge mazes in Larry's Party is necessary for creating the feelings and effects of the novel.
ReplyDelete-Daniel R. Ball
In Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor the main character is born and bred into the trade of house cleaning. Being raised is a cult that farmed out all but the first born sons to a menial trade in order to go out into the world and earn money for the cult; the main character receives no traditional education but rather a strict education in the best way to clean houses. In this way he can never really gain a personality that is his own but rather is a tool for use by the cult leaders. This is seen later in the novel as well when as the supposed last surviving member of the cult his personality is commandeered again when he is turned into a televangelist. The only way that the main character does show control over his own life is choosing the means of his death and even this was really already decided for him. All of the many tricks of the trade that the main character knows are discussed and shared with the reader to reinforce how severely he has been brainwashed. Palahniuk uses the amazing amount of knowledge that the main character has at his disposal to highlight that fact that his character was never allowed to form his own personality, ideals or even emotions and to reinforce the idea of the main character being wholly controlled by his cult and never in control of his own life.
ReplyDeleteLara K.
Rigged, by Ben Mezrick is a fictional book about the life of a stock broker who quits his job at a bulge bracket investment bank and goes to work at the mercantile exchange in Manhattan, and later opens an oil exchange in Dubai. Mezrick describes the main character through his work lifestyle. Dealing with aggressive, chauvinistic pricks all day, and from the long hours behind a Bloomberg terminal, to the craziness on the trading floor, Mezrick uses the intensity of a finance career to move along the novel at break-neck speed, constantly having the character threatened to be fired, and have millions of dollars at risk at all times, really develops story to be read at a ridiculously fast pace.
ReplyDeleteMike Furman
Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird follows the narrator, an orphaned gypsy or Jew, from early childhood to adolescence as he travels around Eastern Europe during World War II. Having no formal education, the narrator tells the reader of his real-life education in different trades as he is taken in or captured by various people. While the narrator doesn't have a certain trade that he sticks with, he recalls in painful details the trades of the people that he lives with. He lives with a miller, who makes him learn the art of milling and as the narrator learns and struggles with the job he does, he tells the reader every minute detail of his labors. Next he lives with a bird catcher, who catches wild bird and describes in detail the traps that must be set up and in terms of superstition what each bird symbolizes down to the their sitting positions on roofs and branches. After living with a rabbit skinner, the reader is fully versed in not only how to skin a rabbit but how to kill one without damaging its fur. The purpose of all these different trades is to show the reader the progression of the narrator and how his cruel childhood shaped him to be an independent adolescent. The cruelties that he faces by being an outsider and having to be a perfect worker to not be killed parallel the life of the author and give the book a semi-autobiographical nature. Mastering all kinds of trades also sheds light on the perseverance of the human spirit and uplifts the reader.
ReplyDeleteElina Kremen
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