Dec 24 2008
The Labyrinth by Kate Mosse - a review
I have to admit that growing up Catholic, even though I’m pretty much lapsed now, has made me really curious about Grail legends and women in the Church. I also loved history - I majored in it in college. The Labyrinth by Kate Mosse combined all of these into one, lovely 500 page novel. Kate Mosse is the founder of the Orange Prize society and its honorary director. She also commentates for the BBC.
In this novel, we are introduced to two, strong female protagonists and a few other strong female supporting characters. The two female leads, Alice Tanner and Alais are born approximately 800 years apart. However, they are both searching for the same thing - the Holy Grail in southern France near Carcassonne. The story begins with Alice Tanner, a Ph.D who has volunteered at an archaeological dig in the Cathar region of France. On her last day, she discovers a pair of ancient skeletons, a ring with a labyrinth engraving and a secret chamber with an altar buried in the mountains. This starts Alice’s fast paced adventures that mirror almost exactly Alais’ in the 1200’s. Alais’s story begins in the summer of 1209 as Carcassonne is preparing to be beseiged by bloodthirsty Northern French crusaders hellbent on eradicating the Cathar influence in the area.
The book alternated between modern day and the 13th century. Undertaking such a mechanism for telling a story can be very risky - the author can easily confuse the reader. However Kate Mosse does it effectively and it’s not confusing at all, perhaps because the stories mirror each other. I tend to think that Mosse is a pretty talented author also and this helps! The story is told from the Southern perspective, so the re-telling of the seiges are definitely onesided - be prepared for that. What was frustrating to me is that Mosse assumed that her audience knew everything about the Cathars and the Crusade of which they were the subject. I knew very little about that Crusade. I knew the Crusades occurred, but not the specifics of each, and I had to constantly Google things to get perspective. I would have enjoyed the book more if I didn’t have to keep interrupting my reading to do research.
Her characters were fascinating - I enjoyed them and learning about them and their motivations. Mosse also deftly developed them over the course of her novel - they were three dimensional and continued to grow and change.
All in all
