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De Anima is filled with striking ideas: that the soul is the form of the body, that it is the body's "potential" or "capacity" and is only actualised in thought or action, that sense-perception receives the "forms" of things and not their "matter", that since everything is potentially an object of thought, and since the intellect is potentially any object of thought, the mind in some sense contains the universe. These ideas are delightful. As are Aristotle's similes. Ancient Greece must truly have been a civilisation of similitudes: Aristotle's lovely images, illustrating his points, remind me of Plato's allegories and Homer's epic comparisons. One of my favourite images, illustrating Aristotle's central thesis:

We should not then inquire whether the soul and body are one thing, any more than whether the wax and its imprint are, or in general whether the matter of each thing is one with that of which it is the matter.

It is no surprise that Aristotle believes we can only think in images, and that perception and imagination are therefore necessary for the intellect.

I can't give the book a 5/5, despite all this, because it has in some ways seriously dated. It is not just a work of philosophy, but of science, and Aristotle's science has been left behind. There are many pages in here of arguments which are simply irrelevant today. This is in stark contrast to a book like the Poetics, for instance, every one of whose paragraphs continues to inspire actors, directors, playwrights, theatregoers and literary critics.

The apparatus in this Penguin edition is charmingly eccentric and genuinely helpful. Lawson-Tancred is surely right to argue that Aristotle's "third-personal" perspective on mental life and "non-substantialist" theory of the soul are the two most interesting aspects of his account for contemporary readers. His style is generally accessible, as he frequently reminds us, though I'm not sure all readers will be equally prepared for a discussion of monadic vs. diadic predication without prior warning or explanation. The summaries of each chapter help to ease the pain of Aristotle's dense exposition.