Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
August 21st 2006 04:44
The blurb announces an author with impressive pedigree. Kate Mosse is the co-founder of Orange Prize for Fiction and has a European Woman of Achievement award, so you’d think she’d be able to come up with a decent novel. Except when it comes to writing fiction, it doesn’t help how many prizes you’ve helped to establish.
Labyrinth starts with an archaeological dig at some remote corner of France. Alice Tanner is temping there for her vacation and led by some voice in her head opens up a cave when no one is looking. The cave has a few skeletons, a book, a ring and a labyrinth. Though the skeletons look at least a few centuries old, the local police seizes the site as a crime scene and enter a villainous lawyer, the first among many, whose is after the book and the ring. Soon enough, Alice is drawn into the intrigue.
Meanwhile, Alice’s thirteenth century incarnation Alais, finds a dead body floating in a river. This eventually leads Alais to find out that her father, a steward to the local king, has a secret past. He is one of the group of five sworn to protect the Holy Grail, not a cup but a labyrinth and its secret formula written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and divided into three books. One who collects all the three books and reads aloud the formula over the labyrinth can invoke the magic of the Grail and become immortal.. Meanwhile, the Pope has declared the fourth Crusade, this time on European soil, whose aim is to wipe out Cathars, a Christian sect which resembles Gnostics in many ways. Among the furious host of French army are people who already know the secret of the Grail and will go to any lengths to collect the books and the grail. I don’t see why they bother, seeing every bit player in this set up re-incarnates again and again. While her father battles on to save their city from the advancing Crusade Army, Alais is entrusted with protecting the secret.
Mosse’s descriptive powers are poor and her plotting standard and the big book is filled with only a few scattered minor thrills. She spends inordinate amount of time on inconsequential incidents until she is through to sixty percent of the novel, when she suddenly wakes up to the reality that she has a lot of ground to cover and therefore, brushes off major action and perhaps the only interesting portion of the novel in a few conversations. The only redeeming feature of the novel is that it projects a genuine sense of evil about the Crusades. By the way, the French are the bad guys in this one. Seeing what they are coming up with in L’Affaire Lebanon, that should detract a little from the novel’s many weaknesses.
Labyrinth starts with an archaeological dig at some remote corner of France. Alice Tanner is temping there for her vacation and led by some voice in her head opens up a cave when no one is looking. The cave has a few skeletons, a book, a ring and a labyrinth. Though the skeletons look at least a few centuries old, the local police seizes the site as a crime scene and enter a villainous lawyer, the first among many, whose is after the book and the ring. Soon enough, Alice is drawn into the intrigue.
Meanwhile, Alice’s thirteenth century incarnation Alais, finds a dead body floating in a river. This eventually leads Alais to find out that her father, a steward to the local king, has a secret past. He is one of the group of five sworn to protect the Holy Grail, not a cup but a labyrinth and its secret formula written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and divided into three books. One who collects all the three books and reads aloud the formula over the labyrinth can invoke the magic of the Grail and become immortal.. Meanwhile, the Pope has declared the fourth Crusade, this time on European soil, whose aim is to wipe out Cathars, a Christian sect which resembles Gnostics in many ways. Among the furious host of French army are people who already know the secret of the Grail and will go to any lengths to collect the books and the grail. I don’t see why they bother, seeing every bit player in this set up re-incarnates again and again. While her father battles on to save their city from the advancing Crusade Army, Alais is entrusted with protecting the secret.
Mosse’s descriptive powers are poor and her plotting standard and the big book is filled with only a few scattered minor thrills. She spends inordinate amount of time on inconsequential incidents until she is through to sixty percent of the novel, when she suddenly wakes up to the reality that she has a lot of ground to cover and therefore, brushes off major action and perhaps the only interesting portion of the novel in a few conversations. The only redeeming feature of the novel is that it projects a genuine sense of evil about the Crusades. By the way, the French are the bad guys in this one. Seeing what they are coming up with in L’Affaire Lebanon, that should detract a little from the novel’s many weaknesses.
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