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A Maze Book to Get Lost In
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Beautifully designed and gorgeously illustrated, this immersive, puzzle-like exploration of the history and psychology of mazes and labyrinths evokes the spirit of Choose Your Own Adventure, the textual inventiveness of Tom Stoppard, and the philosophical spirit of Jorge Luis Borges.
Labyrinths are as old as humanity, the proving grounds of heroes, the paths of pilgrims, symbols of spiritual rebirth and pleasure gardens for pure entertainment. Henry Eliot leads us on a twisting journey through the world of mazes, real and imagined, unraveling our ancient, abiding relationship with them and exploring why they continue to fascinate us, from Kafka to Kubrick to the myth of the Minotaur and a quest to solve the disappearance of the legendary Maze King.
Are you ready to step inside?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eliot, Penguin Press's creative editor, presents a captivating and informative ode to the maze, from ancient myths to modern-day gardens and theme parks. Illustrator Quibe provides fanciful line drawings, and the book's whimsical, mildly disorienting layout requires the reader to turn it upside down, to the side, right side up again, and so on. Woven throughout is the story of Theseus, the Greek hero who slew the minotaur Asterion and escaped King Minos's labyrinth. Eliot also traces the history of the maze through Leonardo da Vinci's sketches and the French King Louis XIV's palace at Versailles, and analyzes mazes from the writings of Franz Kafka, Victor Hugo, Umberto Eco, and others. He investigates the enigma of Greg Bright, the "Maze King," who began his very successful maze-making career at age 19 in 1971 and then disappeared, becoming a recluse. The most striking passages concern the metaphorical meanings of mazes namely, birth, rebirth, and death that have remained remarkably consistent over millennia and across cultures. He astutely notes during a meditation on Goethe's Faust that "the pleasure of mazes, or irrg rten as they are called in German, is not in being lost, but in what is found through being lost." Getting lost and found in Eliot's contemplative prose and Quibe's clever drawings is a similarly gratifying experience.
