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Jun 17, 2013WVMLBookClubTitles rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Lyon recounts the history of Aristotle from the philosopher’s point of view, concentrating on the time he spends as the tutor of Alexander the Great, a gifted adolescent who displays shockingly violent impulses and a passion for warfare. The balance of extremes becomes a theme as Aristotle attempts to temper the boy while battling emotional extremes of his own. Lyon’s voice has been called earthy and frank; thus the grittiness of Classical Antiquity comes alive, and the reader inhabits the mind of a great thinker afflicted with bilious swings of mood and energy. Some days Aristotle sleeps and weeps; others he produces “monuments of work that [are] pure luminous chryselephantine genius.” Lyon’s own work is one of notable achievement: nominated for all three of Canada’s major fiction awards, Lyon won the 2009 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.