Recensione in italiano: QUI
Good day everyone I’m Elena and thank you for being on Alessandro III di Macedonia- Alexander the Great and Hellenism. In the last few days I have managed to resume reading but unfortunately I haven’t been yet able to read the essay on Alexander again, so I threw myself into this italian reading and soon I will tell you about a novel, then I hope to finally be able to tell you about The impact of Alexander’s conquest. But today I’m telling you about a reading (yet another) that I think can easily be avoided.
Alexandros: viaggio ai confini del mondo
by Michele Biotti
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, 2022
ISBN: 979-8430810634, 104 pp.
L’epopea di Alessandro Magno rappresenta un unicum nella storia dell’umanità.
Egli si impadronì in pochi anni di un territorio che arrivava oltre i confini del mondo conosciuto e, se non si fossero rifiutati di proseguire, avrebbe portato i suoi uomini ancora più a est. Avrebbe raggiunto il Pacifico?
Reading time: from February 12th to 14th, 2023.
This is a self-published Italian book for sale on Amazon.it and the paper edition looks bad at first glance: there is no title page, the font used is Arial (but this is the least), the page numbers and the text consists of one large chapter without paragraphs, chapters or any internal subdivisions of the text. The only graphic elements inserted are images which, however, sometimes have the wrong caption or they aren’t where they should be or under the image but in the text. In short, the layout and general care of the text are really poor, but they are secondary to the text itself. The graphic aspect of the text is in the background, as it should be because it is not an illustrated book and therefore the important thing is the words, not the layout. If the text was quality, but unfortunately it is not.
The author begins by explaining the difference between an essay and a novel and concludes by saying that Alexander’s story lends itself well to a historical novel, so he would suggest that we were about to read that. In reality, his essay is an unsuccessful one because Biotti repeatedly quotes other authors, scholars and texts by saying only their names, for example: Citati said, Caratini writes, Arriano reports, Fox says and so on. But that’s not the correct way to report sources. Fox, Robin Lane Fox becomes a woman in fact he writes “la Fox”. It goes without saying that there is no final bibliography or footnotes that give a few more references.
The text is also badly revised: Filippo II becomes Filippo Secondo and on each page there is some type of typo or grammatical error (l’oracolo Delfico becomes delfino). But even this is not the most important element. The thing that bothered me the most is finding pieces copy-pasted from Wikipedia. Do you need to buy a book to read the Wikipedia page? I’m sure some pieces are taken from there, but I didn’t search in depth the whole book because if from the first ten pages it presents these elements it loses importance and I sincerely didn’t want to flea the whole book.
Another element that makes me think the text isn’t edited is that the author speaks of the topics without contextualizing them (for example that Philip was held hostage in Thebes is reported twice but both does not explain why, for how long, in what years) and doesn’t follow a logical or temporal thread of the speech because it seems to take pieces that it puts together and then with other pieces it completes the speech, resulting in often going back to events already said and making everything confusing if you don’t know the story well. For example, the author talks about Philip’s death, then explains the battle of Chaeronea and then comes back again to talk about Philip’s death. They look like pieces glued and poorly fused together, but there are many examples of this type. It’s a pity that this text has been treated so badly because in reality it also contains information that cannot be read everywhere, however is essential that the informations reported are correct and precise. Again Cleopatra, Alexander’s sister is misunderstood because here she was “purely Macedonian” but how, isn’t she Macedonian like Alexander since she has the same parents? She maybe had a different mother! Speaking of Philip’s death the author speaks of two Cleopatras but doesn’t distinguish them sufficiently so it’s not clear why there were two and who they were. Biotti also says that there are three groups of ideas for the murder of Philip but he doesn’t name the scholars or cite works, he doesn’t differentiate between them. Later the author speaks of a scapegoat of the pro-Alexandrian historians to justify Alexander’s failure to capture Darius after Gaugamela, but for everyone to make sense such a statement must be explained otherwise for many it will remain a confusing explanation.
Speaking of people and their character, the author makes some statements that I don’t accept because he often contradicts himself: first Alexander is wise, magnanimous and forgiving, then he becomes cruel; in Thebes Alexander waited to attack but the page before is said that he didn’t know how to wait. Same thing for Darius who is first a great brave warrior and then becomes a coward without charisma. Alexander is defined as a borderline personality, he is well outlined as a mad alcoholic: “Non c’erano più motivi razionali per andare avanti [in India]“ ,“Era evidente che il contatto con la realtà non era più pienamente integro”, is compared to the Nietzschean man with the will to power at its peak, the author quotes Jung to explain his relationship with Barsine (here she becomes a wife), but the author cannot fit all these philosophical-psychological elements into one book that should be an introductory reading on Alexander without explaining what the Apollonian spirit is for Nietzsche. I studied philosophy and I know it all the same, but maybe it’s a knowledge that not everyone has, also because we should be talking about history here. If you want to insert further elements, well, indeed better, but you have to explain and contextualize them. The barbarism of Alexander is very badly explained, too simplified. The author talks about Olympias in a way that I can’t accept, as a negative person for Alexander, like a witch and I’d like to give you some references but there are no page numbers and out of anger I haven’t taken any notes. Biotti justifies Alexander’s love for Hephaestion because of his personality and because of the distance from his father.
D’altronde, diverse vicende evidenziano quanto Alessandro avesse perso il controllo delle proprie pulsioni: le torture inflitte a Besso prima di ucciderlo, i massacri di donne e bambini nei villaggi della Sogdiana, l’omicidio di Clito, l’uccisione dei paggi e di Callistene, l’ossessione della proskinesis; tutto ciò, insieme all’etilismo, lo faceva affondare in una sorta di psicosi violenta e distruttiva: di fronte alla realtà, o la distruggeva o delirava. Il suo esame di realtà era così compromesso che non si rendeva nemmeno conto che la maggior parte dei suoi soldati macedoni che lo seguivano fin dall’inizio era al limite dell’ammutinamento. […] Non sapeva più dominarsi, l’intemperanza aveva sostituito la morigeratezza, completamente dimentico della saggezza Delfica che invita a non cadere in nessun eccesso. Se il greco sapiente sapeva equilibrare Dioniso con Apollo, Alessandro era stato travolto dalla sfrenatezza dionisiaca e aveva perso l’approccio apollineo e solare alla vita. E, effettivamente, per le conquiste e i comportamenti, veniva considerato dalla vulgata il nuovo Dioniso. Le ubriacature e le orge erano praticamente continue, dal risveglio fino a quando, a stento reggendosi in piedi, si gettava sul letto per poi ricominciare da capo. Cosa spinge un uomo a tale foga autodistruttiva?
I brought you a piece that I didn’t like to read. If the author wishes to make an Alexander’s psychological-clinical profile, he must do it well, methodically and rigorously, otherwise we would have to trust his word, which frankly I cannot rely on given the text. I don’t share such a ruthless, alcoholic and bordering on insane view without an explanation in support because this is the proof, in my opinion, of the umpteenth oversimplification of Alexander.
In conclusion: this booklet cost me and is still on sale on Amazon.it at the price of €5.19. The expense itself is small and the author gives us a text full of information that, after all, we cannot find in other books and shows that the author has read at least a few about Alexander, but the most important thing is that it’s poorly maintained, the facts are narrated in a confusing, non-chronological way, because there hasn’t been an arrangement or fusion of the text. In addition there are errors, typos, unjustified statements and a missing bibliography. For all these reasons I cannot recommend this reading, because is introductory but has too many errors and inaccuracies to be useful.
Have a good day and a good weekend everyone,
Alessandro III di Macedonia 