Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia Of Alexandria (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
I am becoming a huge huge fan of this writer. I began with The Secret Magdalene and then skipped this one and went right to Houdini Heart. Both knocked my socks off. Then I came back to this one. Off to find my socks again. Then I jumped to her latest book, Walks Away Woman. I guess I'll have to learn how to knit. Now off to find other writers I like, a lot. Great site for us books crazies. A fabulous what-if kind of "historical" reconstruction. If Hypatia taught mathematics (and we know she did as her father did), if she taught Plotinus (as we know she did), if mathematics in her day was part and parcel of "real" alchemy (which it was), and if alchemy and cosmology spoke secretly of mystical beliefs and concepts (which it seems more than likely they did) then this Hypatia must be as close as we'll ever get to the woman. Unless they find a hidden cache of her writings, things the Christian church did not manage to destroy. How clever to give her two sisters and so create the Triple Goddess. How clever to rummage through what little is known and make a complete person, a complete life, a complete Alexandria, a complete view of the birth of a new religion, the one that spent so many years darkening the world in so many ways and yet seems to retain somewhere in its coils a glimmer of the voice it revers. This is a spell-binder, a miracle. I adored it. I especially adore the sister called Lais. A poet! Poetry is my thing and Longfellow's "Lais" poems are stunning.
What do You think about Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia Of Alexandria (2009)?
great fictional history with a strong female character. I couldn't put the book down!
—Kay
This book is so good, I can't believe it was written by a human.
—bambisoju
Some of the loveliest writing I have ever read.
—julieee610
