HOME • LABYRINTHINE WAYS: A love story and a labyrinth

LABYRINTHINE WAYS: A love story and a labyrinth A New Novel by AURELIA 'Start with Manoussos, Muses, and end with him as well.' Labyrinthine Ways is the story of Manoussos, a woodturner and a shepherd, who lives a simple, self-sufficient life in an idyllic mountain village in Crete. Everyone who knows Manoussos loves this calm, strong man, but some whisper that he seems to suffer from aidos, a dark and secret shame that he cannot articulate. Can this be true? His friends in the kafenion wonder about this strange mystery. Labyrinthine Ways is also the story of the very proper and English Elizabeth, a well-known writer of cookery books who comes to Crete in search of the secrets of the Cretan diet. She has convinced herself that the search for the perfect oregano, thyme, and mountain tea and also the perfect mezzes is why she is coming to the magic island. This is what she truthfully tells her English friends. Someone close to her, however, wonders if Elizabeth really understands her sudden, powerful attraction to Crete and if she can explain why she is drawn to the island, as a moth is drawn to the flame? And then there is Ondre, a Cretaphile and amateur archaeologist, who has always led the most solitary of lives, but is a seeker of adventure who takes the path less traveled. Ondre has just finished, for the third time, Christopher Thorne's, Between the Seas, A Quiet Walk Through Crete, the story of Thorne's trek on the island, from one end to the other, during a single, continuous walk in 1990. Amazingly, the man completed his journey in a fortnight, as Ondre would say, or in two-weeks, as people in countries other than England say. Zigzagging around the island's five major mountain ranges, Thorne estimated that he walked about three hundred and ninety miles on swollen, blistered feet, carrying a thirty-three-pound pack during late August's and early September's scorching heat. Ondre puts down the book, picks up a bastouni, a walking stick a Cretan friend made for him for this occasion, and makes plans for his own adventure. Yes!! He will do it. He will walk Crete from coast to coast - east to west---but he will take his time and explore his favorite archaeological sites once again. He wonders if he will experience the famous Cretan hospitality during his odyssey through remote terrains and villages. But he also wonders if his odyssey is really an attempt to discover himself. The self-sufficient shepherd, the seeker of pleasures for the palate, and the obsessive walker, will follow labyrinthine ways in journeys of self-discovery. Their paths will cross in unexpected twists and turns, but the common thread will be how each undergoes a transformation under the radiant light of Greece on an island where, in the words of Crete's most famous writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, 'the mysteries run very deep.' And now, a digression, for the Muses have been entreated to start with Manoussos and end with him as well'. Manoussos sits in the kafenion next to the bakery waiting for his friend from Iraklio, Yannis, the newspaper editor and webmaster of one of the best web sites on Crete, to join him. As he awaits his friend, for some strange reason, verses from a poem someone read to him many years ago enter Manoussos' thoughts. I fled Him down the nights and down the days I fled Him down the arches of the years I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways ... Of my own mind As Manoussos ponders why he has suddenly recalled these verses, by an Englishman no less, the Muses assemble and eagerly await a much-anticipated pronouncement promised by the Oracle of Delphi. ... stay tuned for more announcements about this exciting new novel. Aurelia is the author of A Lone Red Apple, a love story set on the Greek island of Mykonos. Top of Page • HOME • ARTICLES ON GREECE • A LONE RED APPLE • LABYRINTHINE WAYS • CONTACT AURELIA •

HOME • LABYRINTHINE WAYS: A love story and a labyrinth