Labyrinth, by Kate Mosse
It’s 1209 AD. A young woman named Alaïs stands in the Sabarthès mountains of southern France, holding in her possession the mysterious key to the Labyrinth, a secret worth killing – or dying - for. Eight hundred years later, Alice Tanner is working on an archeological dig in the same mountains, stumbles on a long-hidden cave with two ancient skeletons inside, and finds a surprising connection to the myth of the Grail.
Sounds fun, right? Something like a cross between The Name of the Rose and The Da Vinci Code. Unfortunately, Kate Mosse’s book Labyrinth falls lifelessly somewhere in between. Say what you will about Dan Brown (here, I’ll say it – he’s a sucky writer), but his book had a driving pace and a pulpy plot that made it a fine, disposable mystery. Labyrinth, I think, wants to be more like The Name of the Rose, but it never gets anywhere close to Umberto Eco’s intelligence and passion.
Okay, so the context: In the 13th Century in southern France, a Christian sect called the Bons Homes lived and worked alongside Catholics as well as Jews and the occasional Muslim. Obviously, the church fathers couldn’t let this kind of diversity/heresy stand (and they had their eyes on some nice juicy dukedoms as well) so the nobles of Catholic Northern France invaded, and a bloody civil war ensued. The result was that this sect, also called the Bogomils, or the Cathars, was completely eradicated, and Catholicism became the only acceptable form of Christianity - until the Reformation a few hundred years later.
It’s good fodder for historical fiction, but Mosse tries to combine historical drama with a lurid secret-society story, while awkwardly shoving in the socio-political details. Her single biggest flaw is that her characters are not really fleshed out, leaving us cold. Central characters don’t really come alive, and minor characters barely receive any description at all. Seriously – in the climax a supporting character makes a noble self-sacrifice, and I literally could not remember any personal details about her other than her job title.
Mosse’s other problem is pacing. The first two thirds of the book feel like a lot of set-up and historical detail, then she glosses over the exciting bits with incredible speed. An epic escape from the siege of Carcassona is described in narration – that’s it. A love triangle is suggested, described, and resolved in less than a single page.
It’s a shame, too. It seems like a fairly under-represented period of history – a quick Wikipedia search was pretty fascinating, and it makes me want to pick up an actual historical account of the time period. So I’m glad to have read the book, if only to give me ideas for future reading.
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