Studies have shown that there is a direct link to smells and powerful emotions; this is a fact that is evidenced to be true by the very successful market of perfumes, body sprays, lotions and other products that all have pleasing scents and make quite a bit of money in marketing it. All of my high school guy friends wore the cologne Drakaar Noir, and years later, I was walking in a store and smelled a candle that made me feel incredibly nostalgic and happy, and I had no idea why. Eventually, I figured out that the candle was based on that cologne, and smelling it was reminding me of all of the fun times I had with my friends back in the day. For whatever reason, scent elicits powerful emotions in us, and can bring back memories of people years afterwards.
In Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Grenoille demonstrates just how completely true the quote above is. Think of the ending, for example. What drove normal, sane human beings to tear a person apart bit by bit and consume him like savages? Scent did--nothing else. Nothing in the world would have ever convinced them to do that--kill him maybe, but cannibalism? Nope. If nothing else, Suskind dedicates an entire novel to the highly underrated sense of smell, and creates a diabolical character to demonstrate its power.
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