- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Century (Sep 27 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1844134636
- ISBN-13: 978-1844134632
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15 x 4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 699 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,901,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Praise for Aristotle and Poetic Justice:
“Idyllic . . . violent . . . Nostalgia for lovers of Greece . . . fun for classicists.”
–Times Literary Supplement
“Idyllic . . . violent . . . Nostalgia for lovers of Greece . . . fun for classicists.”
–Times Literary Supplement
Book Description
This is the follow-up to the adventures of Stephanos and his teacher, the philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle has settled down into a sexual relationship with the slave Herpyllis, and Stephanos has married Philomela, the daughter of landowner Smikrenes, and is trying to establish his political position as an Athenian. However, Stephanos is finding the happiness of his marriage is marred by some vexatious lawsuits: one from a neighbour of his in-laws in the Hymettos property, another from the father of the girl he was once supposed to marry.
It is 329BC and a series of thefts (some comic, some sinister) puzzles Athens. They seem to have some connection with a little shop that makes statuettes of Demeter and Kore. Stephanos and Philomela decide to become initiates of Demeter and persuade Aristotle to join them. Their connection with the Mysteries at Eleusis allows them the chance to observe some phenomena that don’t add up. The climax to it all comes during the celebration of the Mysteries at Eleusis when they have enough evidence to pin some important thefts and a murder on personages closely connected with the Mysteries.
It is 329BC and a series of thefts (some comic, some sinister) puzzles Athens. They seem to have some connection with a little shop that makes statuettes of Demeter and Kore. Stephanos and Philomela decide to become initiates of Demeter and persuade Aristotle to join them. Their connection with the Mysteries at Eleusis allows them the chance to observe some phenomena that don’t add up. The climax to it all comes during the celebration of the Mysteries at Eleusis when they have enough evidence to pin some important thefts and a murder on personages closely connected with the Mysteries.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best so far, Oct 12 2005
By ilmk "ilmk" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Mysteries in Eleusis: Aristotle Detective Mystery (Hardcover)
Doody finally brings us to the end of the torturous sub-plot that has pervaded the last few novels. Namely, Stephanos' wedding to Philomena. It provides an excuse for our laconic sleuth to muse in a post-drunken wedding binge that someone might have chucked a sharp knife at him. In turn, this enables him, post-nuptials, to start to think about things other than the sorry state of his interior and exterior décor, symposiums and solving the odd magpie inspired theft here and there that have not gripped our attention up to this point.Doody's slow inexorable plot style drags the unwilling reader along again so that by page two hundred or so of the paperback version we find ourselves wondering exactly what task Stephanos and Aristotle are being set by the author other than responding to a trumped-up charge of boundary poaching by the neighbour of his newly extended family. However, lurking furtively in the background is the murder of the helpful Sophilios and, also, Arhkias' disclaimer over the amount of drakhmai he lost in the incident.
Doody has Philomela express a desire to join the mysteries of Eleusis and this coincides with Aristotle's slave, for whom his affection grows daily. As the novel progresses we find ourselves bombarded with more and more problems and the clue to it all lies in exactly the fact there is an inundation. Stephanos' stumbles alarmingly through his Eleusian initiation, gets overly raucous in the Agora as he's accused of not fulfilling his previous nuptial agreements, finds himself on the receiving end of a knife thrower and a marble head a few times, up on his own tiles and generally harassed left right and centre as he tries to deal with a spurious land ownership charge by Lykon and locate missing children.
By the time we reach our denouement in a pottery shop where we get a quick rash of murders based on the fallings out of a criminal gang, Doody neatly ties up the thievery with Stephano's beleaguered life and we come away satisified that out of the murky randomness was actually a very clever plot. I have to say that I have found the Stephanos mysteries extremely laborious to plow through but this is by far the best so long as you keep gong past page two hundred. It'll be interesting to see if Stephanos continues to improve.
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