Volume 51, Number 11 · June 24, 2004
That Old Labyrinth Song
By Joseph Kerman
The Maze and the Warrior: Symbols in Architecture, Theology, and Music
by Craig Wright
Harvard University Press, 351 pp.,$41.00; $18.95 (paper)
Most musicologists are blinkered souls (or whatever the right word might be: ear-plugged, perhaps)—so it was no great surprise that I knew nothing about labyrinths before reading The Maze and the Warrior by—and this was the surprise—another musicologist, Craig Wright of Yale University. Since then I have been to San Francisco's Grace Cathedral and walked through the labyrinth in the nave. Inside the church the labyrinth is woven on a large circular carpet; outside the church another labyrinth inlaid in the pavement can accommodate the overflow of seekers after repose and spiritual renewal. While I was there, a man brought candles to light at the labyrinth's center, annoying the verger, and a woman told anyone who would listen about her on-site epiphanies. The walk was strangely agreeable. I could feel an attack coming of what Wright calls maze mania, a condition that has given us labyrinths in churches, hospitals, gymnasiums, airports, and prison yards, interfaith labyrinths, 'maize mazes' on corn-lined acres in both America and France, a great deal of inspirational literature, and up to two hundred Web sites.
Review, 3677 words
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