Mary Butts
The Macedonian
William Heinemann, c1933 (no ISBN)
[no cover worth reproducing]
 

Although she died at only 45, Mary Butts still managed to leave a mark on the literary world of English women's fiction.  The span of her life encompassed the end of the romantic period and, like Bercovici's and Mann's, her novel falls into that literary tradition.  Philosophic speculation, extended poetic metaphors and short narrator digressions abound in a way more reminiscent of Henry James than of Toni Morrison.  Likewise, Butts' history reflects the knowledge and assumptions of her time.  She presents the division between Greek and barbarian (which includes the Macedonians) as a division between Apollonic reason and Dionysic passion, perhaps predictably using Philip and Olympias to embody the contrast.  Alexander is a mixture of both, suffering from psychological war between the two.  And it's that psychological war which is, of course, Butts' very Platonic theme:  the battle of the light horse against the dark.

If based on history, this is not an historically accurate book, even given what was known of Alexander in the 1920s and 30s.  We have the historically implausible collaboration between Philip and Aristotle well before Alexander's birth, idealistically plotting the future education of this boy who would be king.  Ptolemy's place is too prominent and romanticized.  (She even calls "handsome" this man with a face like an old shoe.)  Kleitos comes across as a bit of a bucolic fool, and Kallisthenes is the soul of democratic-philosophic courage.

Nevertheless, the work does reflect a classical education and moments of surprising acknowledgement.  For instance, Butts makes reference to Alexander choosing friends *and lovers* from among the boys that Philip will send with him to study under Aristotle.  She is neither ignorant of, nor bent on denying, Greek homoeroticism, even while she approaches it with typical Victorian reserve.  Even her prose is peppered with occasional phrases in French, in the assumption that her readers can follow that language as easily as English.  It is a book intended for an educated audience.

If Butts is not James -- either Henry or Joyce -- she is not by any means untalented, either. The Macedonian is not her best work, but her prose can sing, and some of her observations are insightful.  More, she has chosen a clever way of telling a story that could easily have spanned volumes.  Rather than an unbroken narrative, she selects moments from Alexander's life and career which particular individuals then illumine from their perspective.  These individuals range from Olympias and Philip to Ptolemy to the Persian Mardios to Kallisthenes.  She uses different narrative voices, too, from third-person omniscient for most of the novel to the first-person monologue of Kallisthenes' letter to his uncle Aristotle.  This makes the novel far more than simply historical fiction.  In keeping with Butts' interests, it is as much a work of philosophic-psychological speculation as a novel.

For the reader interested in Alexander fiction, The Macedonian is a fine example of the romantic period, enjoyable as much for its ambiance as for the storyline.  In it, one can even see an echo of Mary Renault.  (One must wonder if she had read it.)  Short and intriguing, it offers a unique charm completely independent of its historical short-comings or occasional romantic flights of fancy.  But then, Butts' very romantic flights of fancy make her writing much closer to the hellenistic novel (which Alexander might have appreciated), than to anything from the pen of John Irving or Anne Tyler.