Colin Wilson, The God of the Labyrinth (aka The Hedonists)

Nicolas Tredell (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1970

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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The God of the Labyrinth

(1970), Colin Wilson’s ninth novel and the third of the “Sorme trilogy”, is a heady cocktail which combines a kind of literary detective story, graphic sex scenes, comedy and occult manifestations and which, by incorporating pastiches of eighteenth-century prose, offers more stylistic variety than is usually the case in Wilson’s fiction. (The version published in the US, under the title

The Hedonists

(1971) was “heavily cut” (Wilson (2005), 275)). The protagonist and first-person narrator of most of

God

is Gerard Sorme, the central character in Wilson’s first novel,

Ritual in the Dark

(1960) and his fourth,

Man Without A Shadow

(1963). Sorme is now in his late thirties and a published writer whose books include

The Methods and Techniques of

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5282 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "The God of the Labyrinth (aka The Hedonists)". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 September 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23935, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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