The two potters Lampo and Gelon are a brilliant double act at the centre of this alternately rollicking, heartwarming, and tragic story of art versus reality.
The book is narrated by Lampo in a very modern style of speech. This did cause some consternation at the book group I read this for, but I loved it. It simultaneously makes the point that people now are the same as people then, and solves the issue of learning ancient Greek to have to read the book.
Lampo is a common as muck potter, short on intelligence and permanently down on his luck. This is brilliantly portrayed through his narration. Even through the frequent coarseness of language, there are some great turns of phrase and he is frequently laugh out loud funny.
The side characters are maybe not all fleshed out as well as they could be, but that's the nature of a first person narrative. We get to know the others as much as they wander into the narrator's path. We know who is important to Lampo, whether that's for material or emotional reasons.
I loved the build up towards the big production, the progress and the pitfalls, and then the production itself is gloriously rendered.
Certain events were somewhat inevitable, in a book about Greek Tragedies, but still managed to take me by surprise. The epilogue is a lovely touch, reminding us that good did come out of the mad venture.
This is a definite contender for best book of the year. It's a glorious read.
