Glorious Exploits

This highly imaginative book is about two friends, Lampo and Gelon, in ancient Syracuse (on Sicily) before 400 BC, right after the Athenians lose a major battle in an attempt to invade them. The story is told from the perspective of Lampo, both he and Gelon are two broke potters recently unemployed and suddenly plan to stage the plays of Euripides, including Medea and The Trojan Women. To pull this off, they decide to hire Athenian prisoners who are being kept in a nearby limestone quarry.

The premise kicks off as an absurd comedy since Gelon and Lampo fumble their way through every step of putting this play on, and you’d assume based on the book’s cover that this is pure comedy - the cover is the face of a wise bearded greek with stick on googly eyes you can often find at a party or crafts store. As the book goes on, there’s a build up of some heartwarming sentiment surrounding the characters and their drive to preserve the art, culture and history of these tragedies and plays.

Putting on a play in the backdrop of war

Lampo and Gelon have this romantic hope and belief that striving for art and putting on a play to be performed is important even in the most miserable and horrific of backdrops. Despite all odds and no budget, they feel compelled that this play has to happen. We see Gelon and Lampo doubtful of their own path, mocked and ridiculed by others, cheated and taken advantage of, beaten to a pulp, and mistakenly go astray with each step of attempting to put on their production. Here’s what Gelon says:

Euripides’s Hippolytus was put on during the plague at Athens. That though the city was ravaged, and bodies lay piled in the streets, and the sky was black with funeral smoke, the festival of Dionysia went on. Half the actors were dying. The audience too, yet the chorus sang; they danced. Gelon says this made it even better. That it gave the actors a frenzy most remarkable. In the same way a soldier who’s been dealt a fatal blow sometimes fights more fiercely than ever in those final moments. In just this way, those Athenians gave something special. Something beyond the normal run of tragedy. We’re doing nothing but following their precedent.

At the core of the novel, it is also the treatment of the Athenian prisoners, who become the cast of the play. It’s about the brutality of war, slavery, hunger that can lead to the loss of culture and art. Preventing that loss is central to Lampo and Gelon’s drive and the prisoners’ agreement to be cast. At first, Lampo and Gelon are only interested in their play and can easily sway the prisoners to be the cast by offering them food to keep them barely alive for just long enough to perform. Over time that turns into an existential desire from Lampo, Gelon and the Athenian prisoners to put the play on despite all obstacles, because pulling this off and that display of culture is so important to preserving something of Athens so that it can outlast Athens. At this point the play goes from a scheme of sorts, to Gelon’s and the books thesis:

That’s why we have to do it, Gelon says with feeling. You’re right, they’re doomed, and in a few months, they’ll be gone. With the war, it might be years before we ever see another Athenian play in Syracuse. Some people are saying when Athens falls, and it has to fall, the Spartans will just burn it to the ground. There might never be another Athenian play again!

Lampo and Gelon

We read a lot about Gelon from Lampo’s point of view. Where Lampo is impulsive or simple in mind, Gelon is intellectual, passionate about the theater, plays and tragedies. He carries grief from the loss of his family and has a resolve to see the play through so that the stories and art carry on beyond them and the Athenians. He’s personally drawn to the tragedies of Medea and The Trojan Women because of their telling of how war impacts children and women. With the loss of both his wife and child, the play and the cast give him a new sense of purpose.

Of the two, Lampo is the comedic foil. He seems to always be a step behind Gelon in planning and future sight. For instance, Lampo blows their budget on frivolous luxuries for himself, rather than food and costumes for the play. He has a very simple world view, and isn’t able to see the realities others are facing at times. He’s often quoting or referring to Gelon’s sage advice and looks to be driven by Gelon’s passion. When Lampo falls in love with the slave Lyra, he’s ready to confess and promise to free her, but Lyra lives in the real world and not Lampo’s daydreams. She doesn’t blindly trust him and relates her story to him, and this causes Lampo to go through real mature changes with a true sense of resolve that we see carry through in other respects.

Immersion in the historical context

For all the great elements that made me love this novel, I did find myself not properly in the ancient setting at times. This is especially true based on how characters speak, cuss, and use language. The positive spin on that is it makes the novel more humorous and readable, and not ancient linguistic drab. I just wish it was slightly toned down. For example, below is pretty jestful, but it’s also not exactly immersive. I recently watched Christopher Nolan’s rendition of The Odyssey and similarly followed the current of discussion surrounding the choice of how dialogue was spoken in the movie versus how we imagine dialogue for an ancient story to be. We tend to think it’s more proper for it to be formal, without any slang, and an undertone of an English accent. There’s no actual ‘rule’ saying this is how things must be adapted, and Ferdia Lennon understands that.

“The sun is blazing all white and tiny in the sky, and you can feel a burn from the stones as you walk. Even the lizards are hiding, poking their heads out from under rocks and trees as if to say, Apollo, are you fucking joking?”

Final thoughts

I’d recommend reading this if you’re looking for something that balances the absurd and heartwarming, is about preserving art, and about a friendship that lasts being tested. I think you’ll get more out of this if you’ve read the Greek tragedies or epics, since those important bodies of work are referenced often and understanding their historical importance definitely adds more weight to the story. A little knowledge of the Peloponnesian wars help too, particularly the geography and high level details.