Every now and again, most writers come across – or have a fascination for – . a word which either has contrary meanings or some peculiar draw, don’t they? My word of the moment (and for a while now), is labyrinth. I’ve used it several times and thought I knew what it meant. Wrong! Well, it wasn’t completely incorrect, as many other writers have used it in the same way…I’ll explain… (Have your cocoa and slippers ready…)
Labyrinth is defined as meaning “A complicated, irregular network of passages or paths, in which it is difficult to find ones way.” Or “A complex structure of the inner ear.” (While, of course, interesting to anyone with ear problems, I’ll respectfully put the second definition to one side.) The Cambridge English dictionary, however, defines the meaning as being a tad different (and an aid to pen chewing scribblers, or unsure key tappers) It’s added boardwalk, esplanade, pavement and bridle path, etc., And, in Greek mythology, a labyrinthine structure was built underground to house and confine a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man called a Minotaur, belonging to King Minos of Crete. (Although why he couldn’t have purchased a Persian Blue feline or a Cocker Spaniel, from the local pet-shop, goodness only knows…) Some people do like to muddy history, don’t they?!
I digress…The first time I used the word labyrinth. I was writing about Dylan Thomas and Laugharne, where he compòsed Under Milk Wood and a whole raft of poems. Being half Welsh, I was on yet another trip to one of my favourite places in Wales: the third. The sun had shone on all three occasions, which was noteworthy in itself…It was Spring, tra la, and the synonymous daffodils were nodding approval, lighting the edge of the estuary like a stage-set. My imagination was way ahead of me, as I walked up the steep – wait for it – “labyrinthine path, under a dense, and untidy umbrella of green foliage – darkly mysterious while beckoning…” Suddenly inspired, the story/novel was to be called The Herons of Laugharne and I even had them (the herons) “picking their delicate way across the shallow waters like corn-footed ballerinas” I had , roughly, mentally written the first chapter before I reached the top of the labyrinth…Sadly, it’s still lurking somewhere between other, forlorn, quarter/half-finished attempts…Hey ho.
Being satiated by everything Dylan – from the modest shed in which he slouched over lines of poetry for days, his trusty whisky bottle rarely far away, to the Boat House where he lived with his wife Caitlin. I moved on. I did wonder what else he could have written had he not succumbed to the ‘devil drink,’ dying at the early age of 39 after downing around ‘13’ shots of the hard stuff ’ in New York city, but he left us some memorable lines and characters. How, once read, could you forget the words
“Do not go gentle in that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
One, WONDERFUL, book which did, most deservedly, see the light of day, written by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, is called THE SHADOW OF THE WIND, and – if you haven’t read it, please do. A man in Spain, who had inherited a book-shop from his father specializing in rare, collector’s editions and secondhand books, took his young son to the: ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’ and bade him choose any one from the thousands secreted there. “Pleased with my choice, I tucked it under my arm and retraced my steps through the LABYRINTH , a smile on my lips.” That word again. Zafon’s writing is an absolute delight, his characterisation memorable. Anyone who writes: “…a waiter of such remarkable decrepitude that he looked as if he should be declared a national landmark.” And “The man’s oratory could kill flies in mid-air.” passes muster with me. As time passes and the young lad grows up, people seem to find ‘the book’ inordinately interesting, and literary curiosity becomes a race to discover the truth behind the life and death of the author: Julian Carax, and to save those he left behind.
As the Observer observed: “The language purrs along. While the plot twists and unravels with a languid grace.” And Stephen King said: “…a novel full of cheesy splendour and creaking trapdoors, a novel where even the subplots have subplots…one gorgeous read!” There’s not much I can add to that.
© Joy Lennick 2017
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