The Pigeon

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The Pigeon (German: Die Taube) is a novella by Patrick Süskind about the fictional character Jonathan Noel, a solitary Parisian bank security guard who undergoes an existential crisis when a pigeon roosts in front of his one-room apartment's door, prohibiting him entrance to his private sanctuary. The story takes place in the span of one day, and follows how this seemingly insignificant event compounds to threaten Noel's sanity. The titular pigeon is a symbol for disorder intruding on the protagonist's meticulously organized existence. This book is Süskind's followup to his first novel, Perfume.