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Summary
Summary
An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.
On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they've herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea . After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.
Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.
Author Notes
Ferdia Lennon was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and Libyan father. He studied History and Classics at University College Dublin and holds an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. His short stories have appeared in publications such as The Irish Times and The Stinging Fly . In 2019 and 2021, he received Literature Bursary Awards from the Arts Council Ireland. After spending many years in Paris, he now lives in Norfolk, England with his wife and son.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lennon brings ancient Sicily to life with humor and pathos in his stunning debut. Thousands of Athenian soldiers are being held prisoner in Syracuse after a failed assault during the Peloponnesian War. Two unemployed potters, Lampo and Gelon, decide to recruit some of the prisoners, who have been left to die in quarries near the city, to perform a selection of Euripides' plays in exchange for food. Gelon, fearing the defeat of Athens could mean the end of its rich history of tragic drama, wants to stage Medea and The Trojan Women, the latter of which depicts the grim aftermath of Troy's defeat in the Trojan War. Lampo becomes increasingly invested in the project and discomfited by the brutal treatment of Sicily's vanquished rivals. By giving his leads a sense of purpose during dark and bloody times, Lennon makes the success of their offbeat venture feel important to the reader, and he thoroughly explores the novel's melancholy central theme--the world is "a wounded thing that can only be healed by story"--all the way up to the gut-punch denouement. It's not all dreary, though. Lampo's crackling modern vernacular adds just the right amount of levity, as when he comments on the hot weather: "Even the lizards are hiding, poking their heads out from under rocks and trees as if to say, Apollo, are you fucking joking?" Lennon's vital tale captivates. (Mar.)
Booklist Review
Lennon's debut is a wonderfully odd, riotously funny story of two poetry-loving potters in 412 BCE. Lampo, the narrator, and Gelon live in Syracuse after the disastrous Athenian invasion. Faced with many Athenian prisoners of war, the town keeps them all in the quarry, leaving them to slowly and horrifically starve. Lampo and Gelon visit to offer scraps of food in return for lines of poetry. Gelon then proposes the impossible, to stage Medea in the quarry, using the imprisoned Greeks as actors. As they scramble money together, they come across a delectably ambiguous pirate, and they are never more than a few moments away from imbibing lots of wine. Lennon's anachronistic use of contemporary dialogue (particularly the insults and swearing) is often laugh-out-loud funny, and each character has a clearly defined voice and perspective. Though it may not take hold of the reader right away, once it does, it does not let go as this superb novel builds to a page-turning crescendo that evokes the great tragedy the men stage.
Guardian Review
Stories about the power of stories are an easy sell; in part, I think, because they subtly ennoble the producer and the consumer of those stories, shedding a glow of valour on the profession of the former and chosen leisure pursuit of the latter. Ferdia Lennon's debut novel, Glorious Exploits, is very much a story about the power of stories - and the spiritual and emotional succour they give - though, fortunately, too much of a clever one to fall entirely into the mode of blithe self-congratulation. It is 412BC, the Peloponnesian war rages, and the Sicilian city of Syracuse has been "turned inside out and on its head" by a failed Athenian invasion. New trade routes are opening, fresh injections of capital are augmenting a crumbling civic infrastructure, and bustling portside taverns brim with gold, enslaved people and democratic idealism. But while Syracuse flourishes, reminders of violence so recently endured are everywhere - not least in the limestone quarries on the outskirts of the city, where thousands of Athenian prisoners have been left, chained, to starve out their last days under a white-hot Mediterranean sun. The novel clips along in a tidy prose judiciously filigreed with some lovely image-making Enter Lampo and Gelon, two directionless, unemployed potters, childhood friends who share a love of Homer and not much else. Their dynamic is classic mismatched-buddy comedy from the outset. Lampo is a cheerfully indifferent bullshitter, who spends his days planning robberies and negging attractive tavern slaves. Gelon is a taciturn aesthete, in mourning for his dead son and fled wife. Together, they visit the quarry, trading mouthfuls of bread and cheese with the wasting prisoners in exchange for half-remembered snatches from the plays of Euripides - the finest of the Greek dramatists, to Gelon's mind. "No Sophocles, nor Aeschylus, nor any other Athenian poet. You can recite them if it pleases you, but water and cheese are only for Euripides ¿ A mouthful of olives for some Medea?" Soon, their ambitions extend further. They will stage Medea for themselves, right there in the sun-baked quarry, with the prisoners as their actors. The action takes place over just a few weeks, and the novel clips along in a tidy prose judiciously filigreed with some lovely image-making and the odd Homeric epithet: the sun is "white and fat like a gluttonous star", the skin on a worker's fingers puckers "like curdled milk", an actor's hands twist in the air "like strange flowers in a storm". What else could the sea be but "wine-dark"? In their first visit to a theatrical costumier, Lampo and Gelon see "a little ginger cat ¿ licking at the gold paint on one of the fake crowns so that its tongue glints in its gob". Gorgeous. Lennon's most significant innovation is introducing a modern Irish vernacular to his classical setting, but if you're fine with a BCE Sicilian shop owner saying, "Sure, time flies is what it does" - and, let's face it, who but the most tiresome of historical purists wouldn't be? - you'll stop noticing after a few chapters. The friends' mysterious benefactor "from the Tin Islands" named Tuireann (an Irish variant of "Taranis", the ancient pan-Celtic thunder god) provides a contextualising link between the Hellenic and Gaelic narrative traditions that Lennon clearly holds in equal reverence. The novel is told exclusively from Lampo's perspective, and while he makes for an amiable narrator, there are some points where his perspective jars. I liked him as a disinterested militiaman (he observes that killing "is a good buzz", if "weird"), but found him - and the novel overall - much less convincing once the gallows humour of the opening chapters gives way to the aphoristic sentimentality of the later ones. It's hard to say anything new about the caprices of the classical pantheon, but observations like "for the world was once just a dream in a god's eye, and the man who gives up on himself makes that very same god look away" packed about as much emotional and intellectual heft as a novelty fridge magnet. The novel's brevity also precludes much meaningful engagement with its themes of poverty, incarceration and exploitation. Although Lampo and Gelon's perspective on their actions alters as their relationships with the Athenians deepen, Lennon's reverence for their theatrical undertaking - for art, for stories, for this business we call show - glosses somewhat over the moral queasiness of their methods. To me, the novel often contradicted its own suggestion that tragedies ought to teach us there is "dignity even in the worst that could happen under the sky", apparently unintentionally. There's still a lot to like in the book, even when the sitcom sensibility starts to buckle under the weight of its premise. I was left wanting more, in part because I suspect Lennon can deliver it, but I have no doubt this breezy novel will win him many fans.
Kirkus Review
A lightly historical novel about two friends and a quixotic theatrical project. Lampo is 30, unemployed, living with his mom, hanging with his best friend, Gelon, and frequently torn between self-pity and self-indulgence. He'd work well in a buddy film, except that Lampo lives in the town of Syracuse on the island of Sicily some 400 years before the dawn of the Christian Era. For his debut, Dublin-born Lennon taps a few lines from The History of the Peloponnesian War, in which Thucydides writes of how defeated Athenian soldiers were imprisoned in Syracuse's quarries. As Lampo narrates the tale, Gelon, who's "mad for Euripides," proposes to stage his Medea in one of the quarries, using the prisoners as actors. The obstacles aren't small. The Athenians are purposely underfed and close to starvation. Lampo and Gelon are low on drachmae for costumes and backdrops, not to mention food and drink to keep their cast from that final exit. And attendance is doubtful since most Syracusans hate the invaders from Athens. Lennon initially dwells on the humor in these production struggles (Lampo's squandering of food money on clothes, coiffure, and general showing off is a delightful episode). He traces Lampo's growth in self-awareness while moving what seems at first to be a frivolous tale into ever darker waters. He's economical with period detail and doesn't shy from anachronisms, like "wreck the buzz." His subplots bring pointed complications, including Lampo's love for a barmaid and the usefulness of a wealthy trader. Exploring themes of friendship, loyalty, and the toll of war, Lennon evokes a time when it was common to relish and revere the art of Homer's poetry and Euripides' drama. Those with that appetite today are fortunate to have Madeline Miller, Emily Wilson, Pat Barker, and recently James Hynes' Sparrow. And Lennon. An entertaining and impressive debut. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
DEBUT After a disastrous defeat during the Peloponnesian War, thousands of Athenians are imprisoned in the quarries outside of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. Lampo, an unemployed Syracusan potter with a club foot, narrates the story. He and his friend Gelon, fueled by their love of the theater, enlist the captive starving Athenians in staging two tragic plays by the famed contemporary Athenian playwright Euripides. It is an outrageous plan, as the local Syracusan populace nurses a particular hatred for the Athenians. A mysterious benefactor comes to Lampo and Gelon's aid to fund the production, which also includes feeding the malnourished actors. Many Syracusans attend the performance's opening night, and the plays are a success, but then an angry local crowd storms the stage, killing most of the Athenian actors; Lampo and Gelon barely escape with their lives. VERDICT Irish-born Lennon's distinctly modern voice adds levity and wit to this highly recommended narrative about the tragic aftermath of war and the tragic beauty of the human condition.--Henry Bankhead
