The golden mean : a novel of Aristotle and Alexander the Great Annabel Lyon.
Aristotle is forced to postpone his dream of succeeding Plato as the leader of the Academy in Athens 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 birthright. But he feels that teaching this startling, charming, sometimes horrifying boy is a desperate necessity. And that what the boy - thrown before his time onto his father's battlefields - needs most is to learn the golden mean, that elusive balance between extremes that Aristotle hopes will mitigate the boy's will to conquer. Also at stake are his own ambitions, as he plays a cat-and-mouse game of power and influence with Philip, a boyhood friend who now controls his fate.
Record details
- ISBN: 0307593991
- ISBN: 9780307593993
- Physical Description: 287 pages ; 22 cm
- Edition: First United States edition
- Publisher: New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
Content descriptions
- General Note:
- Originally published: Toronto : Random House Canada, 2009.
Search for related items by subject
- Subject:
- Alexander, the Great, 356 B.C.-323 B.C. > Fiction.
Aristotle > Fiction.
Philosophers > Fiction.
Philosophers > Greece > Fiction.
Athens (Greece) > Fiction.
Greece > History > Fiction.
Greece > History > Macedonian Expansion, 359-323 B.C. > Fiction. - Genre:
- Biographical fiction.
Historical fiction.
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- 0 of 2 copies available at NC Cardinal. (Show)
- 0 of 0 copies available at McDowell County Public Library.
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- 0 current holds with 2 total copies.
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Summary:
Aristotle is forced to postpone his dream of succeeding Plato as the leader of the Academy in Athens 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 birthright. But he feels that teaching this startling, charming, sometimes horrifying boy is a desperate necessity. And that what the boy - thrown before his time onto his father's battlefields - needs most is to learn the golden mean, that elusive balance between extremes that Aristotle hopes will mitigate the boy's will to conquer. Also at stake are his own ambitions, as he plays a cat-and-mouse game of power and influence with Philip, a boyhood friend who now controls his fate.
