Labyrinthes par Franck Thilliez

Abstract

For those seeking to challenge their minds, this page-turning thriller offers multiple reading options. A free-standing detective mystery, the novel opens with police officer Camille Najinksi, who is tasked with solving the case of a brutal murder whose only suspect is an amnesiac found clutching a black bishop chess piece. Fortunately, hospital psychiatrist Fibonacci can shed some light on the situation. With a warning about the dangers of paramnesia and its capacity to create false memories, he relates the tale the unidentified woman shared with him before losing her memory. The subsequent account alternates between five women: Lysine, a journalist who discovers a disturbing film left in a post office box in her name; Véra, a psychiatrist whose electromagnetic hypersensitivity has forced her to seek refuge in an isolated region of the Vosges; Sophie, a novelist whose premonitions seem to become a tragic reality; Julie, a kidnapping victim sequestered and psychologically tortured by renowned author Caleb Traskman; and Ariane, a young woman of unknown origins who compulsively draws murals of mazes. It is up to the reader and Nijinski to find out why these women find themselves trapped in labyrinthine spaces struggling with memory loss and an inexplicable sense of imminent danger. For the appreciation of astute sleuths, peppered throughout the novel’s tightly constructed structure, are clues in the form of mythological, scientific, and artistic allusions, symbolic objects, and word plays. Those familiar with Thilliez will also find that his latest work sheds new light on the secondary characters of Julie Moscato and Caleb Traskman, who, although of core importance to Thilliez’s Il était deux fois (2020) and Le manuscrit inachevé (2018), never physically appeared in them (see my earlier reviews in FR 95:1 and FR 92:4 respectively). Without contradicting the detectives’ investi gations in these earlier novels, Labyrinthes, when taken as the third installment of a trilogy, elucidates further truths. Finally, as has come to be expected of Thilliez, the author invites the reader to go beyond the entertainment value of his fiction and bridge his literary world with the reader’s own reality. The novel’s references to authentic visual and literary shock artists spark reflection on the interplay of art and violence. Thilliez’s exploration of the power of the mind, well-engrained in the riveting storyline, is encapsulated at the end of the book by seemingly random letters scattered about a labyrinth for the reader to solve. The word revealed by finding a passage through the maze, itself another nod to the earlier installments of the trilogy, unlocks an additional online chapter in which the author shares his metacognition for the novel’s inner workings. Although at times gory and violent, this is one of Thilliez’s best. For those who enjoy being engaged not just viscerally but also intellectually, Labyrinthes is great fun for both Thilliez’s avid fans and neophytes to his universe.