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Ancient Rivals, the Birth of Comedy, and a Writer's Journey through Greece
by Mark Haskell Smith
In ancient Athens, thousands would attend theatre festivals that turned writing into a fierce battle for fame, money, and laughably large trophies. While the tragedies earned artistic respect, it was the comedies - the raunchy jokes, vulgar innuendo, outrageous invention, and barbed political commentary - that captured the imagination of the city.
The writers of these comedic plays feuded openly, insulting one another from the stage, each production more inventive and outlandish than the last, as they tried to win first prize. Of these writers, only the work of Aristophanes has survived and it's only through his plays that we know about his peers: Cratinus, the great lush; Eupolis, the copycat; and Ariphrades, the sexual deviant. It might have been the golden age of Democracy, but for comic playwrights, it was the age of Rude Talk.
Watching a production of an Aristophanes play in 2019 CE and seeing the audience laugh uproariously at every joke, Mark Haskell Smith began to wonder: what does it tell us about society and humanity that these ancient punchlines still land? When insults and jokes made thousands of years ago continue to be both offensive and still make us laugh?
Through conversations with historians, politicians, and other writers, the always witty and effusive Smith embarks on a personal mission (bordering on obsession) exploring the life of one of these unknown writers, and how comedy challenged the patriarchy, the military, and the powers that be, both then and now. A comic writer himself and author of many books and screenplays, Smith also looks back at his own career, his love for the uniquely dynamic city of Athens, and what it means for a writer to leave a legacy.
"Novelist, screenwriter, and comedy writer Smith takes the now-forgotten playwright Ariphrades as the central character in his breezy, bawdy riff on fifth-century Greece, contemporary Greek life, the significance of art, his own development as a writer, women's equality, wine, conviviality, pleasure, and sex...A racy, raunchy, entertaining reimagining of ancient Greece." - Kirkus Reviews
"Smith takes an immersive and irreverent dip into ancient Greece to uncover the origins of transgressive humor. Mixing history, literary criticism, and dirty jokes, Smith pays tribute to a slew of forgotten Greek writers...This erudite but refreshingly nonacademic work will feed the intellect as well as tickle the funny bone." - Publishers Weekly
"Entertaining and informed, Rude Talk in Athens is a dispatch from Greece with much to discuss." - Foreword Reviews
"The most sophisticated book you'll read about writers insulting people they hate... If there were mean girls living in Ancient Greece, I have no doubt Mark would have written a brilliant analysis of the shade they threw at each other and their historical impact." - Al Madrigal, Comedian, Actor, former Daily Show correspondent, and co-founder of the All Things Comedy podcast network
"Rude Talk in Athens is as political and punk, as chaotic and exuberant, as the city itself. Riotous and fun, Mark Haskell Smith's book really made me feel like being in Athens!" - Dr. Emma Southon, author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome
This information about Rude Talk in Athens was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mark Haskell Smith is the author of six novels with one-word titles including Moist, Salty, and Blown; as well as the non-fiction books Heart of Dankness: Underground Botanists, Outlaw Farmers, and the Race for the Cannabis Cup and Naked at Lunch: A Reluctant Nudist's Adventures in the Clothing-Optional World. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, Vulture, Alta, and Literary Hub. He is an associate professor in the MFA program for Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California Riverside, Palm Desert Graduate Center.
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