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| By Alvesgaspar - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43523056 |
The Thessaly novels have one of the best (and most contrived) premises ever. The gods (particularly the Greek pantheon) are real, and we pick up with Apollo, fresh from harassing the nymph Daphne, and Athena, who has thought up a particularly diverting experiment on justice. What if, she asks, someone tried doing Plato's The Republic for real? She gathers up a set of 'volunteers' from across history, with the rule that they all need to have prayed, to her, to have lived in Plato's Republic, meaning lots of greeks, but also scholars from more modern times, including Pico della Mirandelo, Lucrezia Borgia, Cicero, and, one of our key POV characters, Maia, an inquisitive Victorian woman, dismayed at the thought of being someone's trophy wife. Then Athena scoops up a bunch of children, mainly Peloponnesian slaves, and drops the whole lot onto a secluded Mediterranean island in the age of Troy, to act as an experimental 'bubble'. To try and avoid her experiment 'infecting' classical society, she chooses an island doomed to destruction after a few generations - Atlantis.
Apollo, who is struggling to understand why Daphne preferred life as a laurel tree to being ravaged by a divine, chooses to experience mortal life as one of the children, and we follow his story, Maia's, and Simmea, an ill-made but sparklingly intelligent child, through the trials and tribulations of the Republic.
Walton does a bit more narrative heavy lifting to set up her thought experiment, with some timey-wimey rules about how Gods work (they can drop in and out of any period in time, but can only experience each moment once, and are paradoxically self-policing, in that they can't change things that they know have already happened), and the addition of a bunch of futuristic robots, 'Workers', to the island to fulfill the roles of the slaves that would have been required to service Plato's society of philosophers. Oh, and to give plenty of inspiration, the Republicans get to rescue works of art from historical disasters, like the burning of the Alexandria library, to kit out their new island. Last, and best, Walton flies in Sokrates, who is dismayed by the concept Plato has constructed in his name, and relishes the opportunity to query every aspect of this utopia.
What follows is an erudite analogy about the issues of Plato's 'perfect' society, raising the flaws in his disavowal of 'maternal' instincts to one's own children in favour of collective upbringing and yearly eugenically led mating between the best 'souls' in the colony, as well as a touching story of self-discovery for our major players. We sail the Aegean looking for rogue colonists, venture through space and time, and learn to love, and are loved in return, by a God.
The book is stuffed full of classical and philosophical references, but was very easy to follow, even without my having any knowledge of The Republic, or much history of the period. As you would hope from a book about Sokrates, it mainly pushes the reader to think for themselves about what utopia means, and in each of the three books there is a narrative 'debate' to be had, touching on issues of self-determination, the ethics of slavery, the meaning of democracy. At no point to me did the book feel dry or overly serious, and Walton's narrative confection, whilst always inquisitive and well-plotted, ends up spiralling into some pretty crazy places by the end of the three novels.
There were two main threads I particularly enjoyed.
Through the books, we follow Simmea, and later her daughter Arete, who prove to be the best of the 'philosopher kings' intended by Plato, and their abundant humanity leads to some lovely passages detailing their experience of love, in all its Greek forms. Walton writes powerfully about what it means to 'do agape', the selfless, connecting of souls love of true partners, but also explores darker areas of obsession, as well as the cool, comforting light of platonic love.
Secondly, like in all the best sci-fi, Walton holds up a mirror that changes the way you look at the world.
The book opens with a quote from Mary Renault's The Last Of The Wine, which I read after finishing these three (it's great), and is clearly a huge influence, from the characterisation of Sokrates as the perfectly inquisitive philosopher, to the conclusions that Walton draws on the aspects of a 'perfect' society. In her book, Renault's character Lysis says, in a passionate defense of democracy:
Men are not born equal in themselves, so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me...On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a city where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man's will.
Walton explores the gap between this version of a democratic utopia and Plato's formulation, where in the 'myth of metals', the citizen's value is ascribed at adolescence, splitting off the working class from the thinking class. In Plato's republic, the idea of merit is controlled by the state, but in Lysis', it is part of each citizen's role to find and relish ones place. Walton explores this and other aspects of citizenship in a terrifically engaging way, and in a tumultuous year for democracy in the real world, this was a timely and thought-provoking series.
I can't recommend these books enough for anyone who likes Greek history or social science fiction. Walton's writing is immaculate, and it really is breathtaking how she has combines a masterful Socratic exploration with an exciting and emotional storyline. Just as at the end of Among Others, I'm in awe.
