Author: Ferdia Lennon
Publication Information: Henry Hold and Co. 2024. 304 pages.
ISBN: 1250893690 / 978-1250893697
Rating: ★
Book Source: I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.
Opening Sentence: "So Gelon says to me, 'Let's go down and feed the Athenians.'"
Favorite Quote: "Anything is possible, and it always has been. For the world was once just a dream in a god's eye, and the man who gives up on himself makes the very same god look away."
Glorious Exploits is an interesting combination. From the book descriptions, the book is billed as a "celebration of that which binds humanity" set "on the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War" told in "a contemporary Irish voice" as an "ode to the power of art in a time of war" and is "as riotously funny as it is deeply moving."
The plot goes as follows. The Syracusans are victors of a battle. The Athenians are the losers. The victors have gathered the losers as prisoners into an open air prison of a rock quarry. Two potters who are unemployed and looking for merriment offer the prisoners food if they can recite lines from Euripides. Their plan grows from that into putting on a production of Medea from Greek mythology. After all, it's all in good fun except that things take a much darker turn as the opening day gets closer.
Unfortunately, for me, I am completely not the reader for this book. I cannot get past the opening descriptions of this prison and the starving, dying prisoners. The idea of someone then using them for sport makes it worse. The thought of food and the possibility of fending of starvation as the "incentive" is horrifying. "The extra bit of food we're giving them has started to take effect. A stranger could tell which Athenians are the actors by the fullness of their cheeks, the straightness of their backs. As our cast fill out, the other prisoners wither all the more."
Two much real history of such prisons and such atrocity exists. Two much is happening today in the world that resembles this open air prison and the starvation of a population. To turn that into a comic story is not funny, at least not to me.
I love historical fiction because it introduces me to history I may not otherwise learn. The history of this book dates from about 415 BC and the Athenian attempted invasion of the Syracuse. The Athenians were defeated and suffered great losses. The remains of the Athenian forces were executed, sold into slavery, or let to starve in quarries. Unfortunately, that is not the history that will remain with me from this book. Rather, it will be the vision of theater in the midst of this horror. The ending does offer some redemption to this vision. However, it is much too late for me.
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