Kindl, Patrice. Lost in the Labyrinth

I knew Patrice Kindl from her contemporary fantasy Owl in Love, which succeeded for many reasons; I loved the distinctive alienness of the narrator's thoughts, the lean, spare prose, and the blunt yet sympathetic acknowledgement of how foolish people can be when they're young. I don't think that this book works quite as well on those counts, but it's a lovely and tragic story nonetheless.

This is a retelling, principally, of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, from the point of view of Xenodice, 14-year-old princess of Knossos, and the minotaur's half-sister. To her the minotaur is not some savage beast, but her younger half-brother Asterius; she loves him deeply. (She also loves Icarus. Bad enough to love one person tragically, but two?) Her older sister Ariadne, on the other hand, loves Theseus, who has just been brought to Crete and who has vowed to kill the bull in the labyrinth. Oh, and meanwhile Xenodice's other older sister is missing, her younger brother has been found dead--

This is a tiny book. It's 200 pages, almost, but set in spare, elegant type with big margins. (I love the graphic design of the books that Graphia puts out, by the way). It's only 40,000 words, and far be it from me to criticize a book for the 9-12 set for being too short, but it doesn't feel like there's enough there there. There's so much going on, and so little space, and I rarely got a sense of what it would feel like to be in that position with a monstrous yet beloved brother, and inevitable doom.

Aside from that, though, what a beautiful story. The lean and formal prose, and the setting, are reminiscent of Mary Renault's excellent books of ancient history and myth; the historical details are precise and vivid but not overwhelming. The jealousy and passion are so restrained and leashed, in a way that makes them more powerful than if there had been intense screaming matches at every turn.

Xenodice's part in this story is not large. Indeed, she is essentially a bystander for most of it. This is not the story of a girl who does great deeds, but of a girl who does the small things that she is able to do when her world is crumbling around her.

Some reviewers have commented that revising the myth of Theseus in this way, to make the minotaur sympathetic rather than monstrous, is too cut away the power of the original myths. Well--I sympathize with that viewpoint, and there is something important in the story of a truly savage beast at the center of an impenetrable labyrinth. But I don't get the sense that Kindl is trying to say that original myth is wrong, or bad, and needs to be fixed; this is not mainly the story of the minotaur, but the story of the minotaur's sister, and while Kindl uses the backdrop of ancient myth to tell that story, I don't think she's necessarily trying to rewrite or revise that myth.

It's a haunting story. At times it may be torn, to its detriment, between retelling the stories of Theseus and Icarus and telling the story of Xenodice--there is a moment or two of "Oh, we have to fit THIS part in, because it's in the original myth"--but it also manages to be more than just a new face on an old myth.

Kindl, Patrice. Lost in the Labyrinth. New York: Graphia, 2002.