Tired of Merchant Ivory Accents

Ferdia Lennon, 36, hails from Dublin and has recently gained attention for his debut novel, Glorious Exploits. Set in ancient Sicily, the novel won this year’s Waterstones debut fiction prize. The story revolves around two jobless potters who decide to direct a play performed by Athenian prisoners of war. The New York Times described it as “a comic riff on Greek tragedy, with an Irish accent,” while Roddy Doyle called it a tale of “modern-day Dubliners living among ancient Greeks.” We reached out to Lennon at his home in Norwich to discuss his work.

“I’ve been fascinated by ancient Greece since I was a kid. Then I read History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, a chronicle of the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta. Athens initiated an unprovoked invasion of Sicily, focusing on Syracuse. They expected a quick victory, but it ended with thousands of Athenian prisoners being thrown into a quarry outside Syracuse. I knew I wanted to write about that, but I didn’t yet know my angle. A couple of years later, I read Plutarch’s Life of Nicias and learned how some Athenian prisoners survived by quoting lines from Euripides. That’s when I found my story—exploring the Syracusans who, despite leaving the Athenians to perish, were captivated by their drama to the extent of sparing their lives in exchange for these precious lines,” Lennon explained.

Lennon chose to center the story on two unemployed friends. “Some of my favorite books and films are about friendship: Don Quixote, Withnail & I. Starving Athenians in a quarry in 412 BCE is entirely foreign to most, but friendship is a relatable theme. Many people have experienced a sense of their life not going as planned, of having unfulfilled ambitions,” he said.

On the decision to use a Dublin voice, Lennon shared his thoughts. “Why not? I’m not going to write in an ancient Greek or fifth-century BC Syracusan dialect. You have to choose a version of English. Initially, I thought it was coming out quite Irish and pondered whether to pull back or lean in. I decided to double down. Ancient Greek or Roman characters often sound like they’ve walked out of a Merchant Ivory film, but Sicily had been colonized by mainland Greece. It made sense that their Greek would be different, just as Hiberno-English is from British English. Additionally, Syracuse was the largest city in Sicily, so the Dublin voice felt appropriate. The ancient Greek world wasn’t a monoculture; it had dialects, classes, immigration, and a massive slave trade. The language was an attempt to capture that diversity.”

Asked if he has theatre experience, Lennon answered, “No, my only performance was as Frankenstein in a London Dungeon knock-off—I lasted a couple of hours! I lived in Paris for a while and had friends who ran an amateur theatre group. I’d watch their rehearsals but never performed. However, I do love cinema. My older brother was really into films, so we watched a lot of classics from a young age: Kubrick, Kurosawa, Sergio Leone. Watching spaghetti westerns indirectly helped me with this book.”

Lennon’s interest in history stems from a love of storytelling. “I liked good stories growing up. We had a textbook called Footprints in school. Early chapters were about Irish myths, like the legendary hero Cú Chulainn, while later chapters were straight-up history, ending with events like JFK’s presidency. It didn’t differentiate between myth and history, which may have formed a link between narrative and history in my mind.”

Discussing the current wave of successful Irish novelists, Lennon attributed part of it to Ireland’s cultural and structural support for writers. “When I was a student, James Joyce’s house was five minutes away. Just seeing that plaque, it was nice to have that literary history around. On a practical level, Ireland’s structures make it easier for writers. An Arts Council grant helped me write this book. You can submit a work in progress to a panel of peers and if you’re lucky, you might get funding to give you a couple of months to work on your writing. The financial crash also influenced this trend. A whole generation was devastated, and there were no jobs, so you felt freer to pursue what you wanted, even if it didn’t make money. I started writing in Spain while unemployed,” he said.

Lennon has been rereading “The Snow Was Dirty” by Georges Simenon. “It’s one of his romans durs – a guy commits a murder during World War II to impress a friend. When in a reading slump, I pick up Maigret; Simenon is brilliant at creating a scene and an atmosphere,” he remarked.

Currently, Lennon is working on a novel set in 14th-century France during the Hundred Years’ War, following the Black Death. “I’ve described it as being like True Detective in the Middle Ages. It’s grounded in research but with an off-kilter approach. In the Middle Ages, due to their belief systems, who knows what people saw? It’s like a portion of the population was on LSD all the time,” he shared.

Source: The Observer, The New York Times, Roddy Doyle