"The novel is an eclectic historical journey across three periods of history, all connected by a single painting: Rembrandt van Rijn's Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer. With constant reflections between the different time levels, we jump back and forth between the time of Aristotle, Rembrandt and Heller: the Golden Age of Athens, the brief 17th century golden age of Holland, and the golden age of the USA."
This is a stunning read, its that good I put off a day fishing to read it.
We have a biography of Socrates, from his trial until his execution by drinking hemlock.
We have a biography of Rembrandt from when he first becomes famous until his bankruptcy and death.
We have a brief biography of Aristotle as well as his views on life from inside the painting being created by Rembrandt, true.
We have the provenance of the painting "Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer" which is not a painting of Aristotle, from its inception until it was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
As well we have Heller's trade mark cynicism and humorous asides. All this in one book ,its fantastic.
The main thread is that we humans do not learn from our mistakes and are destined to forever repeat them. We have the parallels from ancient Greece until the 20th century. It is actually quite scary when you see them laid out on paper.
Heller concludes that we don't learn from history (and in fact so much of history may be nonfactual that learning may be impossible)." (Wiki)
My personal favourite paragraph from the book is :
" Aristotle knew what Plato did not, that politics and good intentions do not mix"
followed closely by:
" Politics and knowledge did not mix either".
Also did you know "that the people living in the year 4 B.C had no idea that they were."
This is great, I haven't enjoyed a book as much as this for years.
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