It's a pity that Patrick Süskind has been so defined hero of the Das Parfum as is possible.

The hero, as the author tells us, started off life with a series of surprises. Nasty ones. He loses first one parent, then the other. Then he's cuckolded into marrying a pregnant girl - who promptly runs off with another man.

Completely humiliated, he decides that from hence forth he will live life on his own terms, to please nobody but himself. His choice is to move into the tiny apartment that will be his home for life and find work as a bank security guard.. His duties are to stand in one spot all day, except for an occasional tour of the building or to open the door for customers or the bank president.

It is a life devoid of surprises. He is content, but it takes a homing pigeon with a bad sense of direction to make him understand just how happy he is.