Book Title:  The Helmet of Horror:  The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur

Author:  Victor Pelevin; translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield

Publishing Company:  Vintage Canada

Book Website: click here

Year:  2007

# of Pages: 274

ISBN #:  978-0-676-97733-2

$17.95 

3 ˝ Stars 

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner  

Victor Pelevin has already established a reputation of brilliance among young Russian writers.  His novel Buddha's Little Finger was named a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.  The New Yorker named him “one of the best European writers under thirty-five,” and the London Observer has placed him among “twenty-one writers to watch for in the twenty-first century.” 

In The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, Pelevin joins in Canongate's Myth Series (other titles include: A Short History of Myth, by Karen Armstrong; Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Hercules, by Jeanette Winterson; The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood; Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson, by David Grossman; Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams, by Alexander McCall Smith) to give a re-telling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. 

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur, a beast half-man and half-bull, lived deep within a Labyrinth built for King Minos.  After King Minos' son was killed by Athenians, Minos demanded a tribute:  Seven young men and seven maidens must be sent from Athens every nine years to be devoured by the Minotaur.  Theseus, the son of Aegeus, volunteers to slay the Minotaur.  Minos' daughter, Ariadne, falls in love with Theseus, and helps him navigate the Labyrinth, giving him a ball of thread to mark his passage, allowing him to reach the Minotaur and slay it. 

Pelevin places his characters in a modern-day Labyrinth, a chat room.  Each is locked in a small room, clad in the costume of ancient Greece.  The only communication available is through a computer with a connection like the Internet, but not exactly the Internet, since they are limited only to communicating with each other.  Ariadne begins the discussion thread writing “I shall construct a labyrinth in which I can lose myself, together with anyone who tries to find me – who said this and about what?” From there, other characters join in the discussion, and as they continue, the story is told. 

This is a brilliant concept for the re-telling of this myth. Anyone who has entered a chat room or a Usenet group can relate to the labyrinth of threads, beginning from one point and leading off into many tangent discussions.  It is quite easy to become lost trying to follow them.  The book is written in the form of a play, the story told only through the words of the characters. 

But while the concept is brilliant, there are problems with its execution. Often, the characters are assigned lengthy narrations to keep telling the story, and it loses the feeling of a chat room or newsgroup. Instead, the characters engage in long, narrative messages that are the kind most Internet users skip as they read through a thread. This awkwardness hurts the attempts at characterization (it might work better if only one character wrote such long messages, becoming the know-it-all that every group seems to have). Without clearly defined characters, it becomes as easy for the reader to be lost as it was for Theseus, and I found myself wishing for a ball of thread. 

Fans of mythology will find much to enjoy in this book, though, and it should lead them on to other books in the series. It is an ambitious and rewarding project, bringing such top-quality authors together to remind us of the enduring power of myths.