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the complete review - fiction

Glorious Exploits

by
Ferdia Lennon

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : good fun, though tries to do/be a bit too much

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "The novel reeks of that hellish quarry outside Syracuse where the Athenians are penned like slowly dying animals (.....) The success of Glorious Exploits owes much to Lennon’s decision to make Lampo, not Gelon, the narrator. Lampo is smart but ordinary. (...) What makes Gelon’s compulsive urgency especially plausible is that Athens itself may be on the brink of extinction. (...) Within this harsh realism, Lennon finds room for playfulness. He does so largely by layering his own Irishness over the classical narrative. (...) By bringing that truth so fiercely alive, Lennon has given us a fiction that does not remain safely historical." - Fintan O'Toole, The New York Review of Books
  
  
• "Lennon's vernacular gives the novel a shambolic charm, a story told in a Dublin bar by a drunk lurching between poetry and obscenity -- your best friend tonight even if he might not remember you tomorrow. (...) This is all fun -- I first read the novel in one happy sitting, on a plane -- but Lennon attempts to go deeper, with mixed success. (...) he novel seems to assert rather than show or interrogate its central idea, a vague one about the power of storytelling -- a phrase that makes me feel like a dutiful A.P. English student or the kind of person who owns an "I ♡ BOOKS" mug." - Annalisa Quinn, New York Times Book Review
  
  
• "(I)mmensely likable (.....) The novel is raucously funny -- Lampo is a brilliant comic creation -- but Lennon, a classics graduate, blends the laughs with tragedy of the blackest pitch. (...) The writing is beautifully controlled." - Killian Fox, The Observer
  
  
• "This larky, spirited caper feels like a blast and a breeze amid the glut of novels we get these days inspired by Greek and Roman myths. (...) The message therefore seems to be: times change, millennia pass, but young men were just as fine and just as foolish back then as they are now. It’s a risky way to write a classical story, but it pays off because of the energy and immediacy it gives to Lampo and Gelon’s story. (...) The plot is as skittish as the style. (...) (T)he story wobbles about a lot, not always sure what it wants to be. (...) But overall Glorious Exploits is still a delight, both for the originality of its conception and its willingness to pursue such an eccentric idea to its logical conclusion." - John Self, Sunday Times
  
  
• "Glorious Exploits is very funny. (...) But this novel is also serious about life in the aftermath of war, including the plight of the vanquished. (...) Glorious Exploits is also an ode to theatre." - Lily Herd, Times Literary Supplement

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Most of Glorious Exploits is set in classical Syracuse, in Sicily, in 412 BC. The Sicilian Expedition launched by Athens and lasting 415 to 413 BC had led to a crushing defeat of the Athenians. Here we now find the captured Athenian fighters, who were not sent back to Athens or simply killed, kept in the easy-to-guard open-air prison of a converted quarry.
       The bulk of Glorious Exploits is narrated by Lampo (all save a brief postscript kind of chapter, set in Athens in 408 BC), who ventures into the quarry with his close, imposing friend Gelon; they are just: "two unemployed potters with barely a few obols to scratch together", but they have grand ambitions. Gelon is: "mad for Euripides", a drama-enthusiast who holds this Greek master in the highest of regards. In search of snatches of Euripides he goes with Lampo into the quarry, offering water and cheese to anyone who can recite a few of the precious lines -- and: "If it's from Medea or Telephus you'll get olives to". And then he gets more ambitious -- determined to stage a full production of Medea, "with chorus, masks, and shit".
       Lampo is game, and plays along at being director -- though not without being distracted, specifically by falling for barmaid Lyra, a slave from Lydia owned by a local tavern-keeper. He is determined to buy her -- but, as with the planned theater-production -- his (and Gelon's) lack of pretty much any funds present a great hurdle. Fortunately, -- at least, at first, regarding putting on the play -- they manage to find a money-man, a trader who has traveled widely who is willing to be the producer of the show. This Tuireann is also surprisingly hands-off, and lets Gelon and Lampo do their thing; still, his cash -- then as well as later -- can only do so much in a world of fate and destiny, where the gods toy with men.
       Much of Glorious Exploits is then a putting-on-a-show story, as Lennon describes the difficulties the directors face and how they work around them. Lampo's rather too easy way -- and not for the right purposes -- with the cash they get makes for some complications, but they also find people willing and able to help them put on a proper show. The Athenians they collect are, by now, a very rag-tag group, but a some have had theatrical experience and others are familiar with Athenian drama, so it's a decent amateur cast, with a few bona fide talents. Eventually, some local kids also get involved. But there are also some Syracusans who can't forgive the Athenians and are still out to get them .....
       The show goes on ! A double-bill, no less, as Gelon ambitiously tacks on Trojan Women as well -- "It's the new Euripides, his latest and for all we know the last he'll ever write". It's quite the spectacle -- but the high of its success is followed by a crashing-down; the heights of civilization are brought down to its lows.
       The play can't change the Athenians' fundamental situation either -- and afterwards it comes to look even bleaker, leading Lampo to try at least to salvage what he can (while always still looking towards winning over Lyra). Tuireann again comes through, offering an opportunity, if Lampo and Gelon can take advantage of it -- but, of course, the gods continue to toy with the mere mortals .....
       It's all well and good, and an entertaining story. Lampo may be illiterate -- and rather too impulsive, too much of the time -- but he has some qualities, including as a storyteller. Friend Gelon wonders:

     "Why do you act the fool ? You're not a fool."
     "I am. I just know it. I reckon that makes me cleverer than most."

- M.A.Orthofer, 9 December 2024

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Links:

• Henry Holt and Co. publicity page
• Penguin publicity page
• Buchet Chastel publicity page
• Rowohlt publicity page
• NN Editore publicity page
• Impedimenta publicity page
• Extract

• Actualités des études anciennes (French)
• Art in Fiction
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• Daily Mail
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• nb.
• NewCityLit
• The Observer
• Publishers Weekly
• RTÉ
• Tamaranth's Creative Reading
• Thornfield Hall
• Tzer Island
• Wicked Witch's Blog
• Writing And So On

• Official site

• See Index of Irish literature

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About the Author:

       Irish-born author Ferdia Lennon lives in England.

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© 2024 the complete review

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