about David Pearce's annoyance at Dickon Lister's ignorance of the story of Helen of Troy. Starting with chapter four, in keeping with popular spy fiction, the characters refer to each other by code names; in this case, the names used are from the Trojan War: Adrian is "Telemachus", the name of the son of Odysseus in the Odyssey Professor Donald Trefusis is "Odysseus" Istvan Moltaj is "Patrochlus" (sic, in Greek Πάτροκλος, not Πάτροχλος) Szabó is "Helen", the catalyst of the Trojan War (pronounced rather than on the audiobook) His nephews are "Castor" and "Pollux" Salzburg is the "walls of Illium" The author is renowned for his interest in the English language (see Fry's Planet Word). In a post on his blog, Fry talks about the evolving language, including his interest in "verbing" nouns (nouns used as verbs). He also reproaches grammar pedants. In the book there are several experiments with the English language, mostly used in the dialogue. These range from several nouns used as verbs (e.g. "You everything me" or "you sir me"), Americanisms (e.g. "burglarised" or "gotten") to polysyndeton (e.g. "Tom and Adrian and Pigs Trotter"). In the book, at school, Adrian actively tries new vocabulary. As a spy he is told off by Trefusis for saying "it is them" instead of "it is they" (before Trefusis acknowledges that it is obnoxious pedantry to care) and complains to Trefusis about the habit of another (less erudite) character of overusing the suffix "-ise" like an American. Reception The book is noted for its wit and humour, as well as its often outrageous references to various homosexual experiences. Legacy The bar on level 3 of the University of Dundee Student Union building is named after the book, as Fry was Rector of the university from 1992 to 1998. References to pages of the book References 1991 British novels Novels by Stephen Fry Roman à clef novels Fiction with unreliable narrators British bildungsromans Novels set in University of Cambridge Heinemann (publisher) books 1990s LGBT novels British LGBT novels Novels with gay themes 1991 debut novels Nonlinear narrative novels Novels set in the 1970s Fiction set in 1980 Third-person narrative novels