Advertisement

Art & Books Books

The Golden Mean

THE GOLDEN MEAN by Annabel Lyon (Random House), 282 pages, $32.95 cloth. Rating: NNN


The Golden Mean author Annabel Lyon’s turned into Canada’s literary golden girl, capturing a spot on all three of this year’s major prize short lists. I’m not sure why.

[rssbreak]

The book tracks Aristotle’s seven years tutoring his old friend Philip of Macedon’s sons, including Alexander, later to become the Great.

The characters are strong. Both Aristotle and Alexander are geniuses suffering from a form of depression, and you do come to care how their relationship unfolds.

But The Golden Mean is strangely dull, and I speak as a classics major with a real love of the material.

True, Aristotle is emotionally guarded, almost pathologically so, but Lyon writes about war, blood and guts and death, so something should get our juices flowing.

There’s a flicker of real sadness when the philosopher’s stint as tutor ends and he says goodbye to Alexander and his mentally challenged younger brother. Alexander’s angry charge to the teacher who won’t accompany him to far-flung lands is a spectacular précis of Aristotle’s life and work, spat out with the passion that’s missing everywhere else.

This is a novel of ideas, superbly researched, especially the details of daily life, and Lyon has a firm grip on Aristotle’s complex concepts, weaving them deftly into the philosopher’s conversations with his pupils.

One naysayer called The Golden Mean tarted-up Rosemary Sutcliff, the historical fiction writer found in school libraries That’s going too far, I think, but there’s no way it’s in the same league as books by Kim Echlin, Anne Michaels and Alice Munro that are vying for the major prizes.

Find out if Lyon wins the Giller when Bravo! airs the gala Tuesday (November 10) at 9 pm.

Write Books at susanc@nowtoronto.com.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.