Annabel Lyon's acclaimed debut novel, The Golden Mean, took as its subject the philosopher Aristotle and his tutelage of Alexander the Great. Bold and compelling, it was shortlisted for all three of Canada's major prizes, winning the Rogers Writers' Trust Foundation prize. Now Lyon is back with a follow-up, The Sweet Girl, this time narrated by Aristotle's daughter, a savvy, independent girl named Pythias, or Pytho for short.
Lyon structures her new novel around a real historical document believed to be Aristotle's will, which she prints at the end of The Golden Mean and which appears again in part at the beginning of The Sweet Girl. While there's nothing in it quite as contentious as Shakespeare leaving his wife his second-best bed, the text offers a host of mysteries for Lyon to explore. What did Pytho think of the husband Aristotle chose for her? Did Herpyllis, Aristotle's long-time companion, know what was coming to her? And who is the mysterious Myrmex? To answer these questions, Lyon takes us on a tour of Hellenistic society spanning city and country, the Lyceum and the brothel, and featuring midwives, priestesses, war-weary soldiers and even deities.
When the novel begins, Pytho is seven years old and devoted to her famous father. Like him, she loves nature and science, and displays an early talent for philosophical debate and clinical observation. She chafes at the restrictions placed on her because of her gender, spurning embroidery for the more heady thrill of dissection: "Bones are an excellent puzzle, Daddy says. I can apply myself to them for weeks and not get bored."
Pytho's world changes when Alexander dies and Aristotle, concerned about growing anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens, moves his family to the more rustic Chalcis. Lyon has a knack for intrigue, the sizzle behind seemingly ordinary remarks, and she uses this to great effect in these sections, carefully drawing each of the locals who will have their own roles to play in Pytho's destiny. As she grows older, Pytho finds herself increasingly adrift, caught between the spheres of male philosophy and female domesticity, unable to sit comfortably in either. She is particularly troubled by her burgeoning sexuality, and her attraction to Myrmex, her father's ward, who has a disturbing criminal bent.
Pytho's life shifts again when her beloved father dies and the promise or perhaps threat of his will comes to pass. Due to its provisions, Pytho is left alone, as a teenager, to run their house. Without a male authority figure, she has no protection and no recourse, and Lyon shows with chilling precision just how quickly a life can unravel. This section has a nightmarish, fantastical quality that marks a distinct break from the rest of the book, and some readers may chafe at the sudden appearance of divinities and miracles. But perhaps this is Lyon's point: the entry to adulthood can feel as disorienting and unreal as a bad dream. The resolution is more sweet than bitter, but Lyon makes one thing devastatingly clear: in Pytho's world there's no such thing as freedom for women every choice comes with a price.
Lyon's prose throughout is elliptical and hauntingly spare, unfolding exclusively in the present tense. At its best this combination produces a potently elegiac understatement, thrumming with irony. But there are times when it feels a bit featureless, robbing the story of rich detail. There is a similar unevenness to her characterisation. It is often excellent, and she writes some particularly great lines for Aristotle: "A child is a line cast blind to the future Like an idea, or a book. Who knows where it will land, or what it will draw out?" But at other moments, the characters (including Pytho herself) feel so sparingly drawn that they become opaque.
Some of my favourite passages were Lyon's pointed observations about the challenges facing women in ancient society. Aristotle, who famously declared that women have fewer teeth than men, encourages his children to discuss wounds and pus, declaring that "the body is not disgusting". But when Pytho begins menstruating, he doesn't want her around him, "because of the smell". Disease and rot are tolerable and normal a woman's body is not.
Many reviewers of The Golden Mean commented upon the risks of attempting a first novel from the great Aristotle's perspective. But creating Pytho took no less boldness: she is an intriguing blank, a character full of interest but untethered from the struts of history. Lyon works hard to flesh out that potential, using the full scope of her creativity. Fans of her first novel will surely be pleased.
Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles is published by Bloomsbury.
