The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon

The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon

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Summary

In a feat of historical imagination to compare with Mary Renault or Robert Graves' I, Claudius, The Golden Mean brilliantly imagines the relationship between Aristotle and his pupil, later the virtual psychopath and world conqueror, Alexander the Great.

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The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon

As The Golden Mean opens, Aristotle is forced to postpone his dream of succeeding Plato as the leader of the Athenian Academy when Philip of Macedon asks him to stay on in his capital city of Pella to tutor his precocious son, Alexander. At first the philosopher is appalled to be stuck in the brutal backwater of his childhood, but he is soon drawn to the boy's intellectual potential and his capacity for surprise. What he does not know is whether his ideas are any match for the warrior culture that is Alexander's inheritance. But he feels that teaching this startling, charming, sometimes horrifying boy is a desperate necessity. And what the boy needs most to learn - thrown before his time onto his father's battlefields - is the lesson of the golden mean, the elusive balance between extremes that Aristotle hopes will mitigate the boy's will to conquer. In her first novel, Annabel Lyon boldly imagines one of history's most intriguing relationships and the war at its heart between ideas and action as ways of knowing the world. She tells her story, breathtakingly, in the earthy, frank and perceptive voice of Aristotle himself. With sensual and muscular prose, she explores how Aristotle's genius touched the boy who would conquer the known world. And she reveals how we still live with the ghosts of both men.
Annabel Lyon is the author of two short story collections, Oxygen, and The Best Thing for You. She lives in British Columbia with her husband and two children. The Golden Mean is her first novel.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781848875296
ISBN 10 1848875290
Title The Golden Mean
Author Annabel Lyon
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Hardback
Publisher Atlantic Books
Year published 2010-08-01
Number of pages 304
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.