One Missable Labyrinth

Kate Mosse's new book is called Labyrinth (Orion, 2005). It is basically a Grail thriller/romance, and the dustjacket makes all sorts of wild accusations about it being just like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. Unfortunately every one of those accusations is entirely justified. The story interweaves between 13th century Carcassonne and a young woman called Alaïs Pellettier and a 21st century volunteer on an archeological dig in, yes, Carcassonne, called....Alice Tanner. Actually, you know what, I don't think I need to say any more. The entire plot should be horribly obvious to you now. It's a mélange of Dan Brown and Indiana Jones. But there are problems with the book. First, it's a mélange of Dan Brown and Indiana Jones. Second, well, it's a mélange of Dan Brown and Indiana Jones. Actually the writing is so lazy and ridiculous, worthy of the very best of Mills and Boons. And then she makes all of these cringeworthy references to the great René Nelli etc on the langue d'oc, all peppered to give authenticity. And all of this goes on for 525 pages. To be honest I needed it after the emotional car crash I was in, described in the last post. With no seatbelt. It helped me to switch off and have some brain dead time.

Some of you may use the IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) for reviews etc of films. There are lots of threads on Brokeback Mountain, some of them full of crap (as you'd expect), but some with some very interesting observations. This one looks at the Classical references in the final, stunning, scene in the film, especially the descensus inferis in Aen VI. I'll eventually get over this...I presume.