AND FINALLY A lesson in life . . . from a Minotaur

I JUST finished an odd, compulsive, amusing and touching American novel which resonates in my mind.

Steven Sherrill’s The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break is quite bizarre. It imagines the Minotaur of Greek mythology living in trailer park America and working as a cook in a steakhouse (of all places).

The Minotaur — with the head of a bull and the body of a man — was imprisoned in a labyrinth in Crete and fed with sacrifices of young men and women.

By the time this tired, inarticulate monster fetches up in the U.S., however, he has lost his taste for killing and longs for love.

There’s much to ponder — societal outcasts, loneliness, fear, prejudice and acceptance — and I loved the book, which I bought after reading the last paragraph first (a strange habit of mine). Here it is — when it seems that the Minotaur’s fondness for pretty waitress Kelly is reciprocated:

‘The Minotaur accepts this temporary blessing for all it is worth. There are few things that he knows, these among them: that it is inevitable, even necessary for a creature half man and half bull to walk the face of the earth; that in the numbing span of eternity even the most monstrous among us needs love; that the minutiae of life sometimes defer to folly; that even in the most tedious, unending life there comes, occasionally, hope. One simply has to wait and be ready.’

Read that again — fully to understand a sublime truth.

Long before this novel, I felt rather sorry for the alien Minotaur. For that matter I’ve always felt some pity for the nasty, scaly dragon under the heel of St George. Yes, I know — soft-hearted.

Yet I couldn’t do my job if I failed to put myself in the place of the vulnerable, even when their words and actions do show ‘folly’ or downright bullheadness. Nothing surprises me any more — except perhaps the ability of the most humble to show compassion and love. That is where hope lies.