Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction recently, Lord of Misrule is an odd book. It isn't so much that the setting or the story arc are unorthodox; the story is set in a broken down horse racing world on the east coast and populated by characters with names like Medicine Ed and Suitcase. What makes the novel unusual, at least in contemporary fiction, is the narration. Where dialogue is concerned, dialect or vernacular has long been acceptable and at times preferable. But in narration, the deal with readers has always been that authors would revert to standard English usage. This is not the case here. The narration is rendered in half syllables, run-on sentences, and dropped suffixes. As well, the dialogue traffics in the relatively modern convention of not using quotation marks. I'm not sure the work isn't influenced by the style of Cormac McCarthy or Mark Twain.
In his slim treatise on the relationship between readers and writers, B.R. Myers, takes to task the new lords of fiction, criticizing McCarthy, Don Delillo, and others for their ventures into the ridiculous. I keep wondering what Myers will have to say about Lord of Misrule. I keep wondering what average readers will have to say as well.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Golden Mean
In the early part of Anabel Lyon’s new novel “The Golden Mean,” Aristotle proclaims, “In the ideal state, the education of children will be the highest business of the government.”
That the book takes as its narrative arc the relationship between the famous teacher and his most notable student, Alexander the Great, offers a creative look into their well-known relationship, if not for a careful examination of his maxim.
Approaching middle age, Aristotle is summoned to Pella by his boyhood friend Philip, King of Macedonia. Along with his young and less than worldly wife Pythias, the philosopher embarks on a course that has long been considered a crossroad of history; the teenage Alexander and the aging thinker shadow box through their lessons, sometimes working together, other times at odds.
The novel is much more, however, than the simple amalgam of teacher and student. Aristotle’s heritage shades the story. He longs to return to Athens, to the Academy, where he can put aside the worry of daily life, the quotidian complications of maintaining his household, navigating the pitfalls of marriage, his young wife’s pregnancy, his king’s expectations, as well as his own desires.
This simplicity is not to be, however, as Philip leaves to expand his empire, expecting Aristotle to remain in Pella to provide some ethical stability and philosophical inspiration to his son and his mates. This maturing cadre of aristocrats challenges the old thinker.
For his part, Alexander suffers blackouts while in battle, committing atrocities on the battlefield he is later unable to recall. His behavior, recalled by others, clearly abhorrent, is a counterpointed by Aristotle’s own ignoble foray into battle. He serves with the medics, where he continues to develop his conclusions. He recognizes, “There is, too, the matter of purpose; can one say the soul is the purpose of the body? I feel a wooliness there, a gap in the teeth of my logic.”
Alexander and Aristotle find in each other their own aspirations, but also their own failures. Aristotle wishes for more worldly experiences, but knows these are fleeting, and because of his lineage traced from Socrates, he knows is constantly in pursuit of restraint.
This equilibrium is the golden mean, the balance between access and excess; the tipping point between mania and moderation. For his part, Alexander, raised by an ambitious father and a doting mother, wants for a more cerebral existence, but recognizes his inability to hold temptation at bay. Side by side, the two demonstrate both the height of human possibility, as well as the depth of human suffering.
“The Golden Mean” is Lyon’s first novel. Her writing blends an earthy diction with a
That the book takes as its narrative arc the relationship between the famous teacher and his most notable student, Alexander the Great, offers a creative look into their well-known relationship, if not for a careful examination of his maxim.
Approaching middle age, Aristotle is summoned to Pella by his boyhood friend Philip, King of Macedonia. Along with his young and less than worldly wife Pythias, the philosopher embarks on a course that has long been considered a crossroad of history; the teenage Alexander and the aging thinker shadow box through their lessons, sometimes working together, other times at odds.
The novel is much more, however, than the simple amalgam of teacher and student. Aristotle’s heritage shades the story. He longs to return to Athens, to the Academy, where he can put aside the worry of daily life, the quotidian complications of maintaining his household, navigating the pitfalls of marriage, his young wife’s pregnancy, his king’s expectations, as well as his own desires.
This simplicity is not to be, however, as Philip leaves to expand his empire, expecting Aristotle to remain in Pella to provide some ethical stability and philosophical inspiration to his son and his mates. This maturing cadre of aristocrats challenges the old thinker.
For his part, Alexander suffers blackouts while in battle, committing atrocities on the battlefield he is later unable to recall. His behavior, recalled by others, clearly abhorrent, is a counterpointed by Aristotle’s own ignoble foray into battle. He serves with the medics, where he continues to develop his conclusions. He recognizes, “There is, too, the matter of purpose; can one say the soul is the purpose of the body? I feel a wooliness there, a gap in the teeth of my logic.”
Alexander and Aristotle find in each other their own aspirations, but also their own failures. Aristotle wishes for more worldly experiences, but knows these are fleeting, and because of his lineage traced from Socrates, he knows is constantly in pursuit of restraint.
This equilibrium is the golden mean, the balance between access and excess; the tipping point between mania and moderation. For his part, Alexander, raised by an ambitious father and a doting mother, wants for a more cerebral existence, but recognizes his inability to hold temptation at bay. Side by side, the two demonstrate both the height of human possibility, as well as the depth of human suffering.
“The Golden Mean” is Lyon’s first novel. Her writing blends an earthy diction with a
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