The Golden Mean, by Annabel Lyon It is the year 343BC and Aristotle, revered student of
Plato’s academy, superb logician, philosopher and teacher, has arrived in
Pella, capital of the northern Greek city state of Macedon to greet and pass on
messages to his old childhood friend and liege lord Phillip, king of Macedon. Aristotle has recently married and is anxious
to bring his new (and very young) wife Pythia to Athens, the cultural centre of
the universe; he frets that she will
tire of him before their marriage has properly begun – he feels he must beguile
and bribe her with new experiences and fine things in order to keep her with
him. Unfortunately for Aristotle,
Phillip ‘requires’ him to stay on to be tutor to his 13 year-old son Alexander,
and ‘no’ is not an acceptable answer. On
one hand, Aristotle hopes and prays that Pythia will not get restive and
disgruntled after the exciting life he has painted for her does not immediately
materialise, and on the other he is fascinated by his new student, a brilliant,
relentlessly curious young boy who wants to be EVERYTHING: an intellectual, a warrior, an athlete, an
explorer of unknown lands – and the greatest conqueror of the known world.
Thus begins a relationship
that lasts for years, Aristotle always attempting to instil within his
headstrong charge the virtue of moderation over extremism in all things, the
perfect balance between the two – the Golden Mean – with only partial effect. Aristotle’s teachings are undermined on
several levels by court intrigue from other, lesser tutors, and Alexander’s
mother Olympias ‘s sick dependence on her beautiful son, not to mention the
prince’s own dreams of glory. He is
gradually forced to relinquish all influence on Alexander and eventually is compelled
to watch in horror as King Phillip is assassinated. Though the prince is never blamed for his
father’s murder, many fingers are pointed at Olympias as the culprit, but
Alexander does not care: he is now king
and can embark on his life’s course.
Canadian writer Annabel
Lyon writes beautifully of these great figures of history. In spare, elegant,
sometimes bawdy prose she
constructs the life and times of a militant people with great care and skill,
and with almost ridiculous ease breathes thrilling life into ancient heroes of
culture and war who have remained a huge influence on the world for more than
2000 years. Highly recommended.
The
Chemistry of Tears, by Peter Carey
Peter Carey is one of Australia’s most famous and
prolific novelists; he has won numerous
literary awards, including the Man Booker Prize (twice!), and each new work is
greeted with delight by his legions of admirers – including me: after reading his marvellous comic novel
‘Parrot and Olivier in America’, (scroll down all the way to China to read that
review!) I am a committed fan, and while there is much of a mechanical bent
that went right over my head in this latest book, there is also much to savour
and admire; his wonderful facility for
dialogue; his great flare for mood and
nuance, and the complete credibility of his characters.
Catherine Gehrig is a
Conservator and Horologist for one of London’s many museums, the fictional
Swinburne. She restores and repairs all
manner of clocks and antique mechanisms, and has had an all-consuming love
affair for the last 13 years with a curator of Metals at the same institution,
Matthew Tindall, a married man with two grown sons. Weekends and holidays with her
lover, and her profession are all she needs to feel whole and a perfectly
functioning, happy woman – until Matthew dies suddenly of a massive heart
attack. Catherine is reeling, unmanned,
shocked to the core – and she can’t turn to anyone for sympathy, for her great
love affair has been kept secret from her work colleagues, and she has no
family she can turn to. She is
completely, frighteningly alone – she cannot even attend his funeral, for the
official, despised ‘wife’ will be centre stage as chief mourner.
Catherine hits the booze
for the next few days; she can’t
concentrate at all on her work, that of restoring a beautiful French clock, and
vodka is the only thing that can get her through the nights - until her Head of
Department, Eric Croft, presents her with a challenge that will eventually
rouse her from her terrible grief sufficiently enough to start functioning
again: the restoration of an automaton,
constructed in the 19th century for a rich English manufacturer,
Henry Brandling. His young son Percy was
ailing and tubercular; after embarking
on many different and desperate cures, Brandling decided that an automaton, a
mechanical duck, would be the last, greatest entertainment for his precious
little boy. Brandling’s journals are
included with the huge jumble of parts, and the account of his trip to Germany
in 1854 to find the very best Black Forest clockmaker to construct his dream
enthrals Catherine: Henry and Catherine
narrate alternate chapters and the reader is enthralled too by Henry’s account
of the man who eventually constructs for Henry not a duck, but something much
more: is he a liar, a conman, a
visionary, a genius – or all of those things?
Peter Carey writes
movingly about the grief suffered by both his protagonists: the reader has great sympathy for them even
though they are not always likeable, but the last third of the book is most
memorable for the thrill that starts to build as the automaton, splendid and
awe-inspiring, nears completion, and the gradual taking of centre-stage by
Catherine’s gorgeous young Sloane Ranger assistant, who has started to manifest
some worrying problems of her own. There
is also a last, final mystery for the reader to chew on, and this reader
certainly didn’t solve it – engines big or small have always stayed under the
bonnet for me, but the historical enigma intrigued me greatly, and probably
will for a long time. Highly
recommended.
Wulf,
by Hamish Clayton
Hamish Clayton was
recently announced as the winner of the prize for the NZ Society of Authors
Best First Book
, and deservedly so:
he has written an extraordinary, mesmerising account of early 19th
century New Zealand traders and their dealings with the brilliant and ruthless
Te Rauparaha, using that feared Rangatira’s exploits as a modern retelling of
the 10th century poem ‘Wulf’, a verse that has resisted clear
translation by scholars ever since it was written – and shall probably continue
to do so, because of the myriad shades of meaning in so many of the Old English
words.
, and deservedly so:
he has written an extraordinary, mesmerising account of early 19th
century New Zealand traders and their dealings with the brilliant and ruthless
Te Rauparaha, using that feared Rangatira’s exploits as a modern retelling of
the 10th century poem ‘Wulf’, a verse that has resisted clear
translation by scholars ever since it was written – and shall probably continue
to do so, because of the myriad shades of meaning in so many of the Old English
words.
Here we have Mr. Clayton’s
interpretation of the poem underlying factual events in 1830 when the merchant
brig ‘Elizabeth’ sailed to New Zealand from Sydney to trade with Te
Rauparaha. At that time, Te Rauparaha
was so powerful that he held sway over the lower North Island, and had
ambitions to conquer Ngai Tahu who had a stronghold on Banks Peninsula. Te Rauparaha himself had captured Kapiti
Island and turned it into a fortress, unassailable to war parties of any number
due to the brilliance of his military tactics.
He was justly feared and had fully earned his title ‘The Napoleon of the
Pacific’. His mana was held in awe by
‘the white goblins’ as well as all Maori, for this chief also held the monopoly
over a huge region in the trade of flax and whale oil, for which he received
tools, blankets – and muskets.
The ‘Elizabeth’s voyage is
narrated by a nameless crewmember, a man aghast at the strangeness and beauty
of this new and savage land, it’s cruel weather in winter turning into searing
heat in summer, trees which in winter were black and green and gloomy, bursting
in the new warmth into bloody riots of red:
everything seems to become its opposite.
The crew is entertained and enthralled during their trip down the coast
to Kapiti by Cowell, the ship’s trading master, a young man fluent in Maori who
has already met Te Rauparaha and is happy to relate stories of the great man’s
exploits – and his utter ruthlessness when dealing with his enemies. Cowell baptises him ‘The Wolf’, and the name
takes hold.
Cowell is indeed a bard, a
great spinner of tales to entertain and inform – but he is not able to counsel
his captain and first mate against entering into a deal to receive enormous
amounts of flax if they would consent to take Te Rauparaha and 120 of his
warriors south to Banks Peninsula, hidden on the ‘Elizabeth’ there to capture
by trickery the Ngai Tahu chief
Tamaiharanui and his family. The
predicted bloodbath ensues, and everyone is dishonoured by the outcome,
including the captain of the ‘Elizabeth’:
as a last act of treachery, Te Rauparaha reneges on the fifty tons of
flax he promised and the brig is forced eventually to return to Sydney and
ignominy – and criminal charges against captain and crew for being accessories
to the murder of ‘native New Zealanders’.
Mr. Clayton has told this
story so convincingly that the reader journeys willingly with his beautifully
realised characters every step of the way: his juxtaposition of the old ‘Wulf’ with the
new is clever and intriguing and it is satisfying to know that New Zealand
literature has a superlative new voice to tell our stories.
The
Gods of Gotham, by Lyndsay Faye
The city of New York in August, 1845: it is high summer and all, especially the
poor, are suffering from the dreadful heat and the illnesses that flourish in
the noisome, rancid downtown tenements.
Despised Irish emigrants, arriving in their thousands from a home
country that can no longer feed them – the Potato Famine has started – are
clustered in rat-infested ghettos, wondering if they have jumped out of the
frying pan into the fire: their children
are starving and the only work they can find is that which no ‘native’ will
do. Fires start easily in such
conditions and a huge one, destroying several blocks, razes the accommodation,
job and hopes of Timothy Wilde, barkeep, aged 27. He has saved his wages for years so that he
can eventually feel prosperous enough to offer marriage to charity worker Mercy
Underhill, virtuous daughter of a protestant minister renowned for his tireless
efforts on behalf of the poor – as long as they are not Irish catholics. There is constant friction between Mercy and
her father; he lost his beloved wife to
the cholera she contracted nursing those Irish savages and he can’t bear to
think that his cherished girl would meet the same fate. Mercy defies him at every turn, and Tim’s
adoration of her knows no bounds.
Sadly, he feels no such admiration for his
elder brother Valentine who has looked after him (minimally, he feels) since
the death of their parents in a farm fire when Tim was 10. Valentine indulges all his animal appetites,
is totally unscrupulous – and has just been made a captain in the newly created
Police force, a fledgling organisation founded by Justice George Washington
Matsell in a desperate attempt to instil some kind of lawful order to a city
that wallows in chaos and anarchy.
Valentine ropes Tim in as a Roundsman for the 6th Ward,
giving him a Copper Star to wear to signify he is on the side of right: Tim hates his big, bluff brother even more
but is forced to comply – he has lost everything in the fire and unless he
wants to starve he must adapt to his new circumstances. And what circumstances they are!
On his way home to his new
lodgings he is nearly knocked over by a terrified little girl clad only in a
pretty nightgown – it is soaked in blood not her own and there begins a mystery
as fascinating and sordid as the great city itself, particularly when Tim
establishes that the child is an escapee from a brothel, where there are other
child prostitutes, all of whom are coerced into selling themselves because ‘the madam provides fresh food’.
His police work uncovers
the graves of twenty children, all with their rib cages opened like the sign of
the cross: it appears that a serial
killer is abroad, intent on stoaking religious and racial hatred for whatever
ends he desires, and the sacrifice of little children means nothing if they are
all Irish.
This story is so
fast-plotted and such a page-turner that I had to keep reading until the very
end; then I was sorry there wasn’t more. (And it will take some time to guess
whodunit: this tale has more twists and
turns than the reader can keep track of.)
Ms. Faye is a storyteller extraordinaire, evoking an excellent sense of
time and place and characters that are utterly credible. An added bonus for me was the ‘flash talk’,
the thieves’ argot that has existed since the 17th century, evolving
here into an 1840’s version and the forerunner to so many of our colloquial
expressions – yep, a bloke was still a bloke in those days; he hadn’t evolved into ‘dude’! Highly recommended.
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