The Sea King's Daughter (1975)

Listening: Killer Queen

Ariadne "Sandy" Bishop has never met her birth father, a classical archaeologist with some obsessive fringe theories. Their estrangement has never bothered her, since she's more athlete than scholar. But when he shows up on her doorstep with a proposal she help him with some under-the-table underwater archaeological diving on Santorini, she's tempted. It sounds better than a boring summer waiting tables, anyway. But once she's there, it no longer seems so tempting. What is this mysterious discovery her father has her diving for? Who is the German hiding in the villa above the bay? And above all, what are these dreams--almost memories--she's having of a woman in a labyrinth and a monster hiding in the dark? It will be up her to her and the strangely familiar archaeologist Jim Sanchez to find a way to survive when the past starts to rumble ominously in the belly of the nearby volcano...

Spoilers Below

SK Daughter is a multi-layered thing. There's the story of Sandy and her present-day activities on Santorini...and then there's the story of the three English Allied underground agents who worked on the island during the war, with their conflicts and discoveries...and then there's the strange series of memory-like flashes that suggest conflict and drama from what may have been Sandy's past life as the mythological Ariadne.

I rather like the intersection of 'historical' mysteries (here, who betrayed Vince Durkheim during the war? Who is really culpable for his death?) and present day adventure (Sandy's diving, the mother-goddess cult of the island, the volcanic explosion, as well as her troubled relationship with her birth father and dawning romance with Jim). But it's not drawn to it's full potential in this book. Truthfully, it's rather hard to follow, and all that potential for unveiling the action and drama of the forties on Santorini is barely touched on, let alone the complex, potentially compelling character of Jurgen Keller--an old German soldier who faced friends across a battlefield he doubted, and who now struggles with decades-old guilt and culpability surrounding the death of a man he admired. In fact, his former role as a Nazi is dismissed (the word is never even said), and he more or less fades into the background.

I also protest that for a romance that is supposed to transcend time, that is supposed to be a follow-up to the powerful love of the legendary Theseus and Ariadne, Jim and Sandy fall together easily and face little real external conflict. It's almost as if MPM took us all the way to the edge of a reincarnation romance and all its symbolism (cheesy, but classic), and then backed away sheepishly.

I still liked it! I love the exploration it provides of the Atlantis myth, the Minoan and Greek cultures on the islands that gave rise to the myths of bull-headed monsters and thread following heroes. But I feel as if MPM's attention was more focused on the excellent Crocodile that also came out this year.

Rating: ***

Favorite Line: “Who are we really? Combinations of common chemicals that perform mechanical actions for a few years before crumbling back into the original components? Fresh new souls, drawn at random for some celestial cupboard where God keeps an unending supply?

Or the same soul, immortal and eternal, refurbished and reused through endless lives, by that thrifty Housekeeper? In Her wisdom and benevolence She wipes off the memory slates, as part of the cleaning process, because if we could remember all the things we have experienced in earlier lives, we might object to risking it again.”

Notes:

*MPM will come back to themes of reincarnation in her other books, although perhaps more subtly, with more humor and charm.