The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
(Edited to repair a glaring omission!)(This turned out to be the longest review I've written and for a 4 star book!)Let me state that td has written the penultimate review of this fine book and I won’t dare to compete with her depth of comprehension (her review was the whole reason I even purchased the book). So, I thought I’d take a slightly different tack in this and try to understand who and what the Minotaur is (he does have a name, by the way). However, let me preface my own meanderings here with a couple notes:First, the “sex scene” is not really a sex scene. There are a handful of other “scenes” within the book that sensitive readers could somehow find arguably more offensive so don’t let the rumor of bestiality turn you away.Second, Sherrill is NOT Gaiman (again, see td’s review).Now, to begin, the Minotaur is not a metaphor. He is not symbolic of the human condition. He is not even an anthropomorphization. He is an actual flesh and blood immortal living in a trailer park in North Carolina. And it is barely out of the normal. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you will start enjoying the book. However, in his 5,000 years, he’s obviously begun a process of devolution in which the powerful qualities of the flesh-eating terror we all knew and loved have been worn down and diminished before the weak though relentlessly steady aspects of his humanity. Yes, I groan to say it because it sounds so corny but in most ways he has become just as (if not more) human than modern man. We are all the lesser when we lose our monsters:“There was a time when the Minotaur and his ilk were important, creating and destroying worlds and the lives of mortals at every turn. No more. Now, most of the time, it is all the Minotaur can do to meet the day to day responsibilities of his own small world. Some days he can passively witness the things that go on around him. Other days he can’t stomach any of it…”Yet, biology attests that his old ways are not so easy to ignore or forget:“The architecture of the Minotaur’s heart is ancient. Rough hewn and many chambered, his heart is a plodding laborious thing, built for churning through the millennia. But the blood it pumps – the blood it has pumped for five thousand years, the blood it will pump for the rest of his life – is nearly human blood. It carries with it, through his monster’s veins, the weighty, necessary, terrible stuff of human existence: fear, wonder, hope, wickedness, love. But in the Minotaur’s world it is far easier to kill and devour seven virgins year after year, their rattling bones rising at his feet like a sea of cracked ice, than to accept tenderness and return it.”Perhaps a short biographical note and a cute picture of the Minotaur as a bouncing baby on mommy’s knee will help overcome any obstacles.According to Apollodorus in his Library of Greek Mythology:…Minos wished to reign over Crete, but his claim was opposed. So he alleged that he had received the kingdom from the gods, and in proof of it he said that whatever he prayed for would be done. And in sacrificing to Poseidon he prayed that a bull might appear from the depths, promising to sacrifice it when it appeared. Poseidon did send him up a fine bull, and Minos obtained the kingdom, but he sent the bull to the herds and sacrificed another. Being the first to obtain the dominion of the sea, he extended his rule over almost all the islands.But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, Poseidon made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasiphae should conceive a passion for it. In her love for the bull she found an accomplice in Daedalus, an architect, who had been banished from Athens for murder. He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the bull used to graze. Then he introduced Pasiphae into it; and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow. And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth. Now the Labyrinth which Daedalus constructed was a chamber “that with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way…”If you are a member of Goodreads (and it appears you are), you are probably fairly well read and already know what happens after that. However, it’s obvious that the original mythology is slightly incorrect because the Minotaur is still alive lo these many years later, despite rumor of having been slain by Theseus. [Edited] Sherrill, unfortunately, never gets around to explaining what the real story was except that the Minotaur is simply immortal Sherrill does explain how the Minotaur was spared from Theseus' club in a bit of poetry in the Prologue though his immortality remains unexplained (like the several other Greek contemporaries of his that make cameo appearances such as Medusa and Hermaphroditus; Sherrill does neglect to explain how the American South came to be the coincidental gathering spot of these characters but it doesn’t detract from the story of our hero). So being immortal, he doesn’t fear death, but he is still afraid:“…not of death, obviously, but of something else. Ridicule. Embarrassment. Humiliation. Misunderstanding. Injustice. His own potential for tiny rages. Maybe that most of all. All these things can seem, in the moment, worse than dying, particularly if death isn’t an option.”And exactly like the Labyrinth in which the Minotaur was first placed, Sherrill leads the story through a wandering path where excitement is rare but it is genuine and sudden and takes the reader to an unavoidable destination. Throughout the tale, despite his thousands of years of experience, the Minotaur is constantly puzzled by human behavior; by man’s ability to avoid the important questions, by his ability to treat others with such impervious cruelty, and yet still have the ability to treat things not human with so much emotion, something that he finds “...baffling, enviable, and tinged with hope.”The book is not slow or grinding in the least. The work runs at its own pace for a very good reason: It is beautifully written. It is a true credit to Sherrill that he can create such excellent dialogue from a creature who’s curling lips, bovine teeth, and thick tongue limit most of his linguistics to glottal Unnng’s and Ummhm’s.Something that gave me a nice surprise chuckle was the Minotaur’s enrollment in the Sacred Heart Auto Club. Yes, it’s a real organization (actually called the Sacred Heart Auto League) and it’s still around today. As someone interested in all things Catholic, I’d already known about it but I can’t say I’ve ever known anyone else that did. What good southern novel doesn’t contain at least one Catholic element in it even if it’s for comic relief?Perhaps I’m being picky, but the single flaw I find in Sherrill’s work here is what prevents me from giving the book the full five stars I want to give it: his departure from the literary form from which he drew his title character, and it shows especially in the final paragraph of the book:“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.”To me, Sherrill has made of the Minotaur a fable. A tale with a moral. There’s nothing wrong with that, and some reviewers (including td) really latch onto it. However, the tale of the Minotaur stems from mythology, a world in which the inhabitants are in no way in control of their own fate but instead at the will of capricious and whimsical gods and goddesses. I’d have rather not had an explanation given to me. To have that at the end of an otherwise fantastic story was a minor disappointment.Since I intend to stay true to my vow of not giving out 5 star reviews willy-nilly anymore, 4.4999… stars.
Here's my advice and the three-word version of my review: read this book. There are some excellent reviews already on Goodreads about The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, and I don't have an especially brilliant addition to make to those. What I would say, though, is that the book is worth reading because the writing is sublime. It's at turns funny and tragic. It engages our empathy in a way that reminds us -- however uncomfortably -- that we, too, are instinct-driven animals lurking beneath the more refined parts of our neocortex; that we are somewhat freakish and terribly vulnerable; and that, frequently, we are wholly or partially inadequate in managing our lives and loves. It's also viscerally disturbing in parts, as many reviewers have pointed out. Side note on the visceral disturbances: There is a total of one sort-of-sex scene in this book. Crossing as it does the beast-human line, it could easily cause some readers to toss the book aside as grotesque and repellent. To be sure, the way the scene ends is distressing, but not for the reasons one might think -- and I won't explain that here because it's the anti-climactic climax of the book. But the achingly tender good will with which the girl and the Minotaur approach each other, sadly fumbling towards love, was beautiful to me (and I assume to many others). The reason I mention this is because sex scenes -- and even sort-of-sex scenes -- are notoriously difficult to write, even for very good writers, and it requires a great deal of generosity on the part of readers not to say, "Well, that was stupid-awful-unrealistic-boring..." It speaks highly of Sherrill's sensibilities and skills as a writer that he handles even this delicate and difficult material with a deft touch. The semi-sex is messy, awkward, and unnatural; but the writing is none of those things.Sherrill is an eloquent, reflective, and subtle writer who pays close attention to detail, and to whom the words chosen matter a great deal. He is trying to do more than just entertain us. He shows us a microcosm revealing some of the more harrowing, cruel, and disgusting aspects of humanity, while simultaneously (and there's the hard bit) showing us that there is still the possibility of redemption - or at least momentary reprieve - through acts of kindness, compassion, and love. Readers may feel a whole slew of conflicting emotions both during and after reading Minotaur, and may come away from it thinking, "What did I just read?! Am I okay with that? Should I be okay with that? Does it matter either way?" Sherrill's romantic anti-hero, the Minotaur, is as clumsy in his expressions of love as he is in other aspects of life. In such passages as I've mentioned above, Sherrill's prose sings with an emotional and sexual authenticity that I found riveting. One needn't use a lot of words to achieve this kind of gutsy realness, but they have to be the right words at the right time. The words matter. Part of the reason Sherrill is able to depict the agony and ecstasy of romance, love, and lust so well is because his Minotaur is not presented solely as an archetype. The Minotaur is an archetype, yes, but he is also a person, and a complicated one at that. We believe in the Minotaur and want him to come out okay in the end, even as we struggle with some of the choices he makes - or fails to make - due to his crippling inability to cope with human situations in a fully human way. (Of course, many humans share this inadequacy, too, which is one of Sherrill's points.)Sherrill has tethered the Minotaur myth to a post of gritty reality in order to hold taut our suspension of disbelief. The book is replete with details of daily lives lived at the grubby end of the socio-economic spectrum: poorly paid but all-that's-available work; grinding poverty; exhausting heat and squalor; the repetitive and tedious chores required to maintain one's physical existence and bodily integrity; the force of will it takes to keep up decent relationships with neighbours, whose own lives seem as flimsy as the worn out trailers they live in. Still, it's community. And there's hope in that. Some reviewers have described the book as slow, as plodding, or as dull; but I did not find it so. It is essential to the book that we feel the day-to-day reality of the Minotaur's life. As Sherrill explains it, an old professor of his once taught him that "the more outlandish the premise is, the more grounded the other elements must be." I had not heard of Steven Sherrill or this book until I read some reviews on Goodreads, but as I read his biography at the end of the book, I was not surprised to learn that he is a poet. I had wondered, as I read The Minotaur, whether the poems in the book were his own. Turns out, they are. They are worth the price of the book on their own. But read the whole book, because of the words the words the words. How they are arranged on the pages.
What do You think about The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break (2002)?
Quirky, but extremely enjoyable. It's a sort of a fleshed-out version of the poem of the same name, which I reproduce here in full (apologies for any quirks in spacing)The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break Sorely needed because, for the umpteenthtime since landing a job as line-cookat the Holiday Inn, those damn horns of hishave been a problem. It’s the potsthat hang overhead; he keeps punchingholes in them, Management is pissed.The Minotaur sits on an empty pickle bucketblowing smoke through bullish nostrils.He lows. He laments. He can’t rememberwhether the Stuffed Flounder gets béchamelor hollandaise. Moreover, the heat chafes.About that time he spies her comingdown the ally, that new waitress the wholekitchen is talking about. He almost gives herthe once-over but can’t get past her breasts.The Minotaur is a tit man. -- I’m a tit man--he mouths to the Fry Cook. -- What’s that mean;You’re a tit man? -- they ask. The Minotaurcan’t answer. He sits indignant, a convictedit man, picking at the dried gravystain on his apron. Feigning indifferencehe nearly misses the miracle beneathing her,this apparition in slinky black.But as she hoofs her way up the backsteps he can’t help but notice those fine shanks.And what offers them up is not the sensible pump,is not the stiletto heel, is nothing lessthan cloven. "Things are looking up" he thinks.copied from -http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/k/s...
—David
One sleepless night almost a year ago, I decided a comic novel would be just the medicine I needed. Something light and funny, I thought, would take my mind off the end-of-winter blahs and put me in a better frame of mind. Steven Sherrill’s The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break seemed the perfect thing, but was I ever in for a huge surprise.I expected The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break to be sort of a campy comedic book, a romp, something to make me laugh, and it does have its laugh-out-loud moments. However, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break is far more bittersweet, dark and tenderly moving than I ever expected. By the time I finished reading, I wasn’t smiling; I had tears in my eyes.The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break is a little gem of a book, a quiet, understated masterpiece that hasn’t received the attention it deserves because, I think, it isn’t a “big book.”The Minotaur of the title is the Minotaur of legend, that half-bull, half-man who was banished to a labyrinth built by Daedalus on the Greek island of Crete. The son of King Minos’ wife, Pasiphae and an ivory bull given to her by Poseidon, most of us thought the Minotaur had been done in by Theseus, but Sherrill lets us know this “ain’t necessarily so.”The Minotaur is alive, if not totally well, and he’s living in North Carolina. Living in North Carolina, working as a line cook at a steakhouse known as Grub’s Ribs and living in a boat shaped trailer in the Lucky-U Mobile Estates. This book covers a two-week period in his never-ending life.Lest you have any doubt, the Minotaur has changed quite a bit during his 5000-year sojourn on Earth. He no longer devours virgins and he’s no longer someone (something) to be feared. Instead, the Minotaur has become a rather regular guy, who, like the rest of us, is just taking it day by weary day, trying to get by. He doesn’t have a lot; his television has a coat hanger for an aerial and the Minotaur has even taught himself to sew so he can alter the necklines of the shirts he buys to fit his “bullish” head. Now known only as “M,” the Minotaur drives a 1975 Chevy hatchback and he works the three to midnight shift, something that suits him just fine because cooking is one of the few joys in his lonely, isolated world.Life isn’t easy for M. I mean, come on, how would you feel if you had to go through life with the body of a human and the head of a bull, complete with horns? Surprisingly, M is accepted by most of the inhabitants of his little corner of the world, for who he is and what he is. As the book opens, M is taking one of his many cigarette breaks, in back of Grub’s:The Minotaur sits on an empty pickle bucket blowing smoke through bullish nostrils. He sits near the dumpster on the dock of the kitchen at Grub’s Ribs smoking and watching JoeJoe, the dishwasher dance on the thin strip of crumbling asphalt that begins three steps down at the base of the dock…The Minotaur doesn’t like to smoke but smokes anyway, smokes menthols because he likes them even less….The Minotaur, you see, is just an ordinary guy, trying to fit into a very ordinary world. And, for the most part, he does. He smokes because he thinks it will make him more “normal,” more accepted by those around him. Most of the people around Grub’s and the Lucky-U pay little attention to the Minotaur. Perhaps they recognize something of themselves in him. After all, we’re all a bit of a misfit, at least in some ways, we’re all misunderstood, at least on some level, and we all feel, at times, as though we’re a bit of a “freak,” just like the Minotaur.M doesn’t interact with the other characters in the novel too often. After all, when it comes to social skills, he’s really pretty inept. He lives his life quietly, loving, not only cooking, but also, tinkering. Tinkering with cars, with clocks, with his clothes, with his “transitional skin” where his bullish head joins his human body. And at times, the past does come calling and he gets a hankering or two for one of those virgins of yore. M has had lovers, lovers who’ve “run the gamut in species, gender and degree of consent and reciprocity.” He’s come to be very open-minded where sexuality is concerned.The Minotaur may be open minded, but finding love, or even a lover, isn’t as easy as it used to be…at least for M. However, when Grub hires a new waitress named Kelly, who feels as though she’s something of a misfit, herself, M sees possibilities. Oh, not possibilities of ensnaring another victim; those days are over, but the prospect of really finding, for the first time in his life, something that resembles true love.Although one might expect a book featuring the Minotaur of legend as a metaphor for existential human “aloneness” to be “gimmicky” and a bit ponderous, quite the opposite is true. Sherrill has done such a marvelous job in bringing the Minotaur to life and in endowing him with very human qualities. We come to see him as “one of us”, as just another guy, trying to fit in. M is really “Everyman,” and that’s one of the reasons we find it so easy to identify with him:This is a slow paced book, one that is almost without plot, one that chooses instead, to explore the universal themes of loneliness and alienation, yet it remains surprisingly light on its feet. Sherrill achieves story tension, not through manipulation of plot, but through manipulation of pace. And even though the book is, much of time, dark and bittersweet, Sherrill hasn’t forgotten how to be playful. If you’re a careful reader, you’ll find other mythical gods in this book. There’s Pan, stuck in a scrapyard; there’s Medusa; the wood nymph, Daphne can be glimpsed at the till of a Georgia truck stop; there’s even a nod of parody to Antigone.Although Sherrill never lets his story slip into sentimentality, he’s managed to create a Minotaur who is, perhaps, more human than humans. We really care about this guy; he really works his way into our heart. We want the best for him, but like M, we feel more resigned to his fate than optimistic, for woven throughout the narrative of The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break are passages that let us know something about the dreadful burden of immortality. The Minotaur has seen it all before and he’s going to see it all again. And again. And again. And again:The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break is a book that does a marvelous job of combining the mythic with the mundane, much in the way Big Fish and The Watermelon King do. It is, however, easier to understand and more human than Big Fish, or at least it was to me.None of us, I’m pretty sure, have the head of a bull and the body of a human, but we all struggle with our limitations; we all sometimes feel like a misfit; we all do our best to get from day to day. As the Minotaur puts it: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 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..If only it were that simple. For M, and for us.
—TheGirlBytheSeaofCortez
I listened to this book via Audible. It is part of a series of books presented by Neil Gaiman on Audible. Gaiman is one of my very favorite contemporary authors, so I was curious to look into one of the books he has produced. The audio production is first rate as the reader is excellent and extremely well-suited to the novel. I enjoyed the experience of listening to this very, very much. How many readers have the facility to render bull grunts into believable language? Yes, the main character is indeed the mythic Minotaur. The novel, a work of imaginative fiction, is just beautiful A compelling story of love, hope, and I suppose, redemption, is set in the deep South in a trailer park and at a restaurant both of which are drawn with loving and respectful attention to detail. Sherrill writes so well about things as seemingly disparate as fixing cars way before computers entered into it, and being a line cook in a medium-sized restaurant. The nuance of engine sounds becomes as important a detail as how to bone a fresh salmon. Or carving beef in front of customers.So, a minotaur assigned to the beef carving station... the irony and humor of this novel are rich, but at the same time delicately rendered. Kelley, the epileptic waitress, the kids who live in the trailer park and wreak havoc on it, the trials of the owner's bulldog (again, the irony!)the thugs who belittle the gay waiter--all are great and interesting and add to one's appreciation of the world that now shapes the Minotaur's life.I really loved this book and highly recommend it.
—Ellen
