Deadly serious No. 1 bestsellers? I don't know...

Is this how the rot sets in? Is this how one becomes a book snob? When I started to feel critical after only a few pages of "Labyrinth", the "No. 1 bestseller", I had to face up to the fact that my demands on a self-indulgence book are far, far higher than on an Ambitious Book Project. I don't expect an ABP to grip me from page one, or at least page twenty. I'll give the characters in an ABP time to grow on me. This is because I know that, even if in the end I don't like the book, the time will not have been completely wasted. I can always boast afterwards about having read a classic, or a book by a prestigious modern author. And if it bored me, I can be even more insufferably culture-vultureish by adding: "...and it was rubbish". Because of my tolerant mood when reading them, however, and because books that are highly spoken of are often highly spoken of for a reason, I seldom do find ABPs to be rubbish, quite the contrary.

Now self-indulgence books are quite different. I know no-one will pat me on the back for reading them. And so I become a more difficult audience than the most arrogant princeling in history. I want to be entertained, or else what's the whole exercise worth? "Labyrinth" bravely flings at me age-old bodies in a cave, a mysterious ring with a mysterious pattern, an initiation ritual to a strange sect that goes off in an unexpected direction, another body, fresh this time, missing a thumb, that lies in the water... And all this before you have reached page 50. It goes on in the same action-packed way, even fitting in a steamy love scene. And still I'm hard to please.

One of my problems with the novel so far, I think, is the solemn tone. It seems we are meant to take the adventures of the heroines - or heroine, as they appear to be different re-incarnations of the same girl - very seriously. I'm not sure I see the point of the grim, stone-faced action yarn. I prefer my popular authors with a dash of wit: Christie, say, for all her intricate plotting, didn't stint on the bantering dialogue or wry observations. Come to think of it, most "serious" authors benefit by some humour, too. I chuckled more than once while reading "To Kill A Mockingbird", which is more than you can say for "Labyrinth". But it may yet lighten up and make me care for the heroine/s (I don't, yet). I do hope the dignitaries of the Catholic Church don't turn out to be the big baddies, though. For my own part I wouldn't mind much if they do nab the True Grail - they're Christians, aren't they? It's not like they wouldn't appreciate it - and I'm a Protestant.