LABYRINTH: A Book Review

We start at the height of the Spanish Civil War, a brutal period described by some as the dress rehearsal for the apocalypse of World War II. The story of the attack on Guernica by Adolf Hitler's German bombers is well known, thanks in part to Picasso's great elegiac painting memorializing the atrocity. Less well known is the brutal 1939 Italian bombing attack on defenseless Barcelona--which is the point of departure for the epic novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, "The Labyrinth of the Spirits."

The labyrinth of Ruiz Zarón's compelling saga of mystery, intrigue, dynasty and romance is a vast spiral library of forgotten books that reminds this reader, in its realm of mysterious, mythical surreality, of Borges' memorable "Library of Babel." At a deeper level, it is a powerful metaphor for the dark inner conflict in the shattered soul of post-war Barcelona, and post-war Spain.

In the opening scenes his protagonist, a young woman called, appropriately, Alicia, barely escapes the Barcelona bombing as a child, surviving a dreadful fall down the rabbit hole of the story's "labyrinth" armed only with a copy of Alice in Wonderland. She is left an orphan, with injuries that cause the dreadful, chronic pain that accompany her through the dark years of survival through the city's post-war years of traumatic recovery from the festering wounds of war. She is smart, resilient, ruthless, even vindictive in pursuit of what she sees as right. (She reminds me quite a bit of that other broken crime-fighting girl, the one with the dragon tattoo...)

A blend of magical and raw realism, of history, literary thriller and family saga, "Labyrinth" is a compelling read, a page-turner even at it 800-page length. It is also, given the specter of fascist authoritarianism that seems to be reviving throughout the world today, a valuable and timely reminder of the dire consequences of submitting to the forces of oppression.