Rude Talk in Athens: Ancient Rivals, the Birth of Comedy, and a Writer's Journey through Greece

by Mark Haskell Smith

Overview

"Rude Talk in Athens is brave, brilliant, and incredibly funny. There are loads of very specific characters, including Mark himself. It's the Mark Haskell Smith version of hanging out with Stanley Tucci and Anthony Bourdain, but in present day and ancient Greece. I agree with everything he says about comedy and have never read anything like it." ―Barry Sonnenfeld, Film Director and author of Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951213343
Publisher:	The Unnamed Press
Publication date:	08/17/2021
Pages:	203
Sales rank:	1,091,775
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

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 Universityof California Riverside, Palm Desert Graduate Center

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What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A hilarious romp disguised as an earnest history lesson, or vice versa. Smith might be even funnier than the dead Greek playwrights he brings to life." —Jamie Brisick, author of Becoming Westerly

"A racy, raunchy, entertaining reimagining of ancient Greece." —Kirkus Reviews

“Great read fun stuff I highly recommend it a must have.”—Erik Griffin, comedian and actor

"Mark Haskell Smith, in this splendidly(and authentically) foul-mouthed tour of Athens in the 5th century BC, reminds us that if you want to learn the truth, follow the laughter." —Michael Bywater, author, broadcaster, and culture critic

“Reading Rude Talk in Athens is like taking an epic tour of Greek drama and politics with an irreverent expert in the driver’s seat. Smith [speaks] about fame, the political power of comedy, and why oral sex is tantamount to revolution.”—Tobias Carroll, Los Angeles Times

"Smith is a delightfully funny writer yet also modest and self-deprecating—the smartest guy in the room who waves off compliments about his intelligence. Rude Talk in Athens is fascinating, bizarre, and refreshingly optimistic, a plea for openness and selflessness in a society that has become proud of its own callousness."—Michael Schaub, ALTA Journal

Editorial Reviews

05/10/2021

Smith (Naked at Lunch) 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: the work of one humorist, Aristophanes, was preserved by the Greek elites and is still well known. Ariphrades, meanwhile, was cut out of the conversation because his plays were thought to be crude, full of low humor, and critical of the aristocracy (though they were quite popular in their day). Smith connects the ancients’ sense of humor to that of contemporary Greece (which he keenly observes on his many travels to Athens) and opines on humor’s essential utility in modern life: “If democracy needs a sense of humor, if radical ideas need to be presented in a way that eases them into our consciousness, why are so many people so quick to denounce comedians and squash uncomfortable conversations?” No matter how antiquity-specific Smith gets, he always keeps in mind the importance of pushing against the status quo and preserving democratic values. This erudite but refreshingly nonacademic work will feed the intellect as well as tickle the funny bone. Agent: Mary Evans, Mary Evans Inc. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"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

"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

From the Publisher

2021-05-21
Historical recovery of an Athenian playwright who scandalized his society.

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. Smith’s interest in the obscure playwright was piqued when he came upon this quotation in Courtesans and Fishcakes, British historian James Davidson’s 1998 book about classical Athens: “At some point in the last quarter of the fifth century a man called Ariphrades had managed to acquire notoriety as a practitioner of cunnilingus.” In a culture where Dionysian festivals featured drunken parades of men “carrying large cocks and shouting obscenities as they cavorted through town,” Ariphrades’ reputation seemed curious, to say the least; consequently, Smith set out to find out what was behind it. Aristophanes—“the big swinging cock of Athenian comedy”—regularly took aim at Ariphrades in his satirical plays, which themselves were “colorful, loud, and very rude.” It may be, Smith thinks, that performing cunnilingus offended men because the act would be seen “as submitting to women” and therefore a betrayal of Athenian patriarchy. Or maybe Ariphrades had become too much of a rival. Smith became curious, too, about the deletion of Ariphrades from literary history: Not even a fragment of his work remains. “He was eradicated,” writes Smith. “To me, that’s a signal that he was important in some way we don’t understand.” Through research and interviews with experts, the author concludes that “the transgressive challenging of cultural and societal norms through sexuality, might be the only legacy Ariphrades leaves us.” He skewered “the aristocracy, the ruling class, the status quo,” and he seemed to have no need for convention. "We need to cultivate enthusiasms like his,” Smith claims. “We need more people to go down on each other.”

A racy, raunchy, entertaining reimagining of ancient Greece.

Kirkus Reviews