RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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There’s been plenty of criticism of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey from right-wing culture warriors, but that certainly isn’t the extent of it. In a new, 4,000+ word review in the London Review Of Books , Emily Wilson, who translated a 2017 version of the Odyssey Nolan read before filming his movie, totally ripped the movie, going so far as to say, “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”
As you can probably tell, Wilson has precious little nice to say about Nolan’s adaptation. (For what it’s worth, she previously tossed off a probably-joking Bluesky thread about how his version was actually about living in LA.) Taking aim at the online criticisms that the adaptation isn’t white enough, Wilson writes, “there is nothing progressive about it. Most of the non-white actors… play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.” She also takes aim at Nolan’s characterization of his female characters, writing that “none of them has much to say, in contrast to the characterisations in the poem.” Saying that Nolan’s adaptation “lacks many of the elements that make the poem great,” Wilson offers a fairly succinct summation of her issues with this paragraph towards the end of her review:
“It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
It’s worth noting that Wilson’s translation—the first translation of the poem into English by a woman—wasn’t without criticism and controversy of its own when it debuted, and also only partially because of culture war bullshit. Wilson’s translation was widely described as using more modern and accessible language than previous translations, which some argued was too different from the original text. But Wilson says that Nolan borrows the first line of her translation for his adaptation, which she writes she was “humbled” by before ultimately saying she wouldn’t want to have written any part of this.
Still, after about 4,000 words of pretty brutal criticism, Wilson manages to find some nice things to say. “In what we are told is a time of declining literacy and the ‘death of the humanities’, translations of The Odyssey , including mine, are flying off the shelves,” she writes, also celebrating the fact that people are going to movie theaters to watch it. “Nolan… is doing his best to get the general public reading again, and I am grateful.”
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