Glorious Exploits

This book was an absolute masterpiece. Right away the storytelling with an Irish voice in an ancient Sicilian setting made the story, for me, so approachable. A modern Greek tragedy filled with characters seeking beauty in darkness, forging bonds least expected, love, loss, war, the theatre. I was a sniveling mess by the last chapter with how beautifully full-circle the story came. This is a book that will stick with me forever.

Thanks to Henry Holt and Co and NetGalley for this digital ARC.

I had little idea as to what to expect when I was approved for this ARC of Ferdia Lennon's 'Glorious Exploits' but, as an Irishman with a long-standing interest in the classics, the description tickled my fancy.

I'm so glad I requested and was approved. This novel is just fantastic. It's so original in its subject matter and - at a time when in films and on TV every ancient people have a posh English accent - the use of the modern Irish use of the English language is refreshing, funny, and madly appropriate.

During the Peloponnesian Wars - Syracuse ascendant over Athens - two boozy, unemployed potters decide to stage two plays by Euripides in a penal quarry acted by the doomed Athenian prisoners who populated and supported by a handful of bereaved children. What could possibly go wrong?

This novel brings the reader originality, humor, emotion, a hard look at both sides of a war, humanity, and friendship.

I hope 'Glorious Exploits0 is a raging success and I hope we see it on TV some day, it would be amazing.

Bravo.

I absolutely loved this story. Very entertaining, and one the top books I’ve read this year.

It’s friendship, dreams, and humanity in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, in Syracuse.
Lampo and Gelon are best mates and unemployed potters who love their wine. Gelon loves Euripides and is worried Syracusians won’t be able to see one of his plays. Gelon decides to direct Medea and Trojan War with the Athenian prisoners in the quarry. Lampo is along for the ride and narrates the story in a modern Irish accent. Lampo is audacious, brazen and cheeky and that’s why we fall in love with him.

Thank you @netgalley and @henryholtbooks for the eARC.

Serious props to whoever came up with the irresistible cover of Glorious Exploits, the debut novel from Irish-Libyan writer Ferdia Lennon, because it perfectly encapsulates this strange, appealing novel: Classic, yet full of anachronism.

The story takes place amid the Peloponnesian war, after Athens has failed to conquer Syracuse and Sicily and Athenian prisoners are kept in a quarry outside the city and left to starve. Two lowly potters, Lambo and Gelon, spot an opportunity to put on a play by the great Athenian playwright Euripides, with prisoners who, from Athens, must be true actors. They find a financier, they feed the prisoners, they put on a play.

Much will be (rightfully) say about how Lennon’s ancients speak as though they live in a working class Dublin neighborhood, as it’s the contrast between the old and the new that feels at once strange and yet entirely logical.

The dramatis personae of the story are the lowest of Syracusan society - working poor, slaves, prisoners – yet the pathos of their relationships elevates it to something more. There’s love, humor, absolute and horrifying loss and death. To say more is to give away what little plot there is. It’s art for art’s sake, but also art that bridges the chasms between bitter enemies.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 💫 4.5 stars rounded up

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.