With Thucydides’ minutely detailed account of the Peloponnesian War — the war fought between 430-405 BC, the book written throughout, resulting in a dauntingly dense tome that in modern pages approaches a monstrous 700 — he essentially created the field of history as we know it. It’s been some 2,400 years since this consequential conflict pitted Athens against Sparta, and though ages have passed in the interim, Ferdia Lennon’s debut novel Glorious Exploits reminds us that humanity is not so different today from what it was then as it explores our persistent inclination toward violence, art, and compassion.
Set just after the war in a Sicily overabundant with Athenian prisoners the vengeful Syracusans have elected to more or less starve to death, this tale of mirthful tragedy follows the local pauperous poetry aficionados Lampo and Gelon as they attempt to stage the great plays of Euripides with the Athenian slaves for a cast. You can hate a people, they reason, but why hate their art? And when else would they have the opportunity to see Athenian plays performed by actual Athenians? As the collaboration forges an appreciation for their once-enemies, a struggle ensues between the empathy inspired by art and the hatred galvanized through conflict.
In a novel twist, Lennon brings an immediacy to this time-distant tale by putting contemporary language into the dialogue between his ancient characters. Lampo comes off like any broke, boozy stumblebum literati you might meet in a Dublin bar today, rambling about Joyce and Orwell between asking if you can spot another pint, only he and Gelon muse over the couplets of Euripides and Homer. This linguistic trick bridges the gap between then and now, revealing something enduringly congruous about the human experience over time.
Ever enthusiastic to geek out on some antique Greek historio-cultural critique, I chatted with Lennon about the great ancient texts, the state of Irish literature today, and art’s role in creating empathy during times of war.
I’m one of the few people in the world who has read Thucydides in its entirety, and I’m guessing that was a pretty key part of your research. Reading such a dense, lengthy, old tome begs the question: what’s the point of remembering history?
Delighted to hear you’ve read it all. Thucydides’ history is one of my favourite books and was really the starting point for the project. As to what is the point of remembering history, I think Thucydides answers that better than me when he writes, “It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future.” Anyone who reads enough history notices that certain patterns appear again and again. We are obviously technologically worlds apart from 5th century BC Athens and Syracuse, but the human mind hasn’t really changed at all.
Why did you decide to set your novel against the backdrop of the Peloponnesian War?
One of the many things I loved about Thucydides’ history is that, although it’s an incredibly detailed chronicle of warring states, in another sense, it reads like a Greek tragedy where Athens is the hero, brought down by its own fatal flaw of imperialistic ambition, and the Sicilian Expedition is at the heart of that tragedy. I wanted to write about this but hadn’t found my point of entry; then I stumbled across the passage in Plutarch’s Lives, where he describes how defeated Athenians in Sicily survived because the Sicilians were so enamoured with Athenian poetry that they would give them rations, and in some instances freedom, in exchange for recitations of his work. Suddenly, this epic historical war narrative became very intimate, strange, and relatable, and I knew what my book would be.
Where did you get the idea to put modern Irish English in the mouths of ancient characters?
I was reading modern translations of Aristophanes’ comedies and having a grand old time when it struck me that these were really the only contemporary works written about ordinary Athenians rather than the mythic heroes of the tragedies or the elites of Athenian society. Just as the subject matter was completely different, so too was the way people spoke. These plays are bawdy, sweary, wildly funny, and urgent. It seemed odd that most fiction set in classical Greece followed the convention of having characters sound like they had stepped out of a British period drama like Brideshead Revisited. After reading them, I knew my language needed to be contemporary. Hiberno-English made sense because the Greek Sicily of my novel, like Ireland, was an island which had been colonised, and I wanted to convey this in a way that was fun and different yet held its own logic.
Your novel has a lot to say about the role of the artist in times of war. So to put it bluntly, what is the role of the artist in times of war?
I think the answer to that question depends a great deal on the artist and the war, their own personal beliefs, artistic sensibilities, and the war in question. When I think of Irish examples, James Joyce wrote most of Ulysses during World War I. During World War II, Samuel Beckett wrote comparatively less and spent much of his time risking his life as part of the French Resistance. I would say one thing that art can sometimes do is create a sense of recognition and empathy, which can — for a short while, and in an imperfect way — bridge seemingly unpassable lines of division. It was this Sicilian fascination with Athenian drama as the reviled Athenians lay starving and defeated before them, the inherent contradiction in it, that drew me to this subject.
Who are your favorite of the ancient Greek playwrights, why, and what should contemporary writers learn from them?
My favourites are Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes. Aristotle said it best when he said Euripides was the most tragic of Athenian dramatists. So for depth of feeling and extreme characters engaging and enduring an almost wretched excess, he is your man. For structure and perfectness of dramatic form, I would say Sophocles, and for raucous, surreal comedy that still holds up today, Aristophanes. To be fair Aeschylus is no slouch either. You can’t go wrong with any of them, to be honest.
Ireland has never been shy about producing great works, but it seems like it’s been churning out consistently quality literature over the past couple of decades in particular. Why do you think that is?
I think the fact that so much great literature has historically come out of this tiny country and continues to do so gives Irish writers a great sense of possibility and also the feeling of being part of something. It perpetuates its own momentum, and then, on a very practical level, there is significant government investment in the arts. In Ireland, it’s far easier for a writer to access grants and bursaries than in, say, England. I think part of the contemporary flourishing of Irish writing can be attributed to something as simple yet key as grants giving Irish authors more time to finish their books.
This is your debut novel, and as someone relatively new to the world literary scene, what would you say are the biggest problems with literature and the wider publishing industry today? What are the solutions?
As you said I’m very new to the world literary scene and can’t speak with any great authority on the publishing industry. In most eras, people tend to feel that things are wrong and that they were better at some point in the past. Writers, in particular, often feel a sense of belatedness, a nostalgia for a prior golden age they never experienced, but if I’m honest, I think literature will be just fine. There will be good books, okay books, terrible books, and great books, and the last will category will always be in the minority, but this has been the way right back to the ancients.
